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V 




















(Cl)c Saints anb Servants of 0ob 


THE LIFE 

OP 

c =\\cWm, ) O' p 

SAINT ROSE OF LIMA. 


First flowret of the desert wild, 

Whose leaves the sweets ot‘ grace exhale, 
We greet thee, Lima’s tainted child— 

Rose of America—all hail! 


Gaude Maria Virgo, cunctas hoereses sola interemisti 
inuniverso mundo.— Antiph. Ecclesice. 


EDITED BY THE REV. F. W. FABER, D. D. 


FOURTH AMERICAN EDITION. 

PHILADELPHIA: 

PETER F. CUNNINGHAM & SON, Catholic Booksellers, 
No. 817 Arch Street. 



» * '• 































The History of the American Virgin Saint Rose of Lima, 
is full of interest and edification not only for the Catholics 
of the Church in America, of which she will always be one 
of the brightest ornaments, but also for all who wish to know 
something of the power of the Holy Spirit in a soul faithful 
to His divine inspirations. 

f John N. Neumann, 

Bishop of Philadelphia. 

Feast of St. Agnes , 

January , 1855. 


Entered according to Act of Congress, in the Year 1855, by 
PETER F. CUNNINGHAM, 
in the Clerk’s 0files of the District Court for the Eastern 
District of Pennsylvania. 


71 


By Transfer 
Dept, of State 
Nov i 9 1W 












NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 


No words can express the emotions which this 
history of the Virgin, St. Rose of Lima, will awaken 
in truly Christian hearts that love Jesus Christ, his 
ever blessed Church, and their native land. How 
wonderful is God in his Saints, will be the exclama¬ 
tion at almost every page. And with our wonder 
at the graces and glory bestowed on these favourites 
of the most High, will break forth the prayer for 
increase of faith, increase of love, mingled, it may 
be, with bitter tears, lest for our sins, we should be 
forever separated from their holy company. Next 
to God’s own word in the Sacred Scriptures, nothing 
so touches the heart, enlightens the soul, and rouses 
up even the most slothful to a sense of all we owe to 
our Redeemer and never can repay, as the reading 
of the lives of the saints, the contemplation or the 
virtues, sufferings and triumph of such a child of the 
Church as is here presented to us. And St. Rose is 

(3) 



4 


NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 


only one of that innumerable host of witnesses whc. 
whether living on earth or reigning in heaven, testify 
to the truth, the holiness, the divinity of that faith 
we profess. 

Every day we repeat—“ I believe in the Holy Ghost, 
the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints 
but which of us can realize the infinite treasures of 
joy, hope, encouragement; the manifold motives for 
trust in God and his glorified servants under every 
trial; the boundless means of salvation which the Holy 
Spirit has provided for us in this communion of saints 
in the Catholic Church. Have we not cause to fear 
that myriads among us live and die without forming 
to themselves even a faint idea of the beauty and 
excellence of our religion ? The love of the world, 
and of the things that are in the world, leave us no 
time to lift our thoughts to where the saints are 
reigning with God in bliss—Our brothers! our sisters! 
they, who in this world knelt before the same altars 
with us, heard the same mass, received the same 
sacraments, worshipped the same immaculate Virgin 
Mother, said the same beads in her honour, and that 
of her beloved son, practiced the same devotions, and 
in every land under heaven, repeated as we all do 
this day, “ I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.” 
0 ! that we all may believe; for believing we must 
rejoice with joy unspeakable; we will adore in spirit 
and in truth, and thus dispose ourselves to receive 
thf end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls 


NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDI I ION 


5 


This it not the place to enter into any controversy 
respecting the homage which has always been and 
forever will be offered by God's Church to his most 
faithful, and therefore best beloved children, the 
saints. Such works as this are, from their very nature, 
designed for those whom St. Paul reminds us “ are 
no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens 
with the saints and the domestics of God," often are 
they written with as little regard for the unbelief or 
indifference of the age, as though such a being as a 
heretic or a bad Catholic were hardly to be found on 
earth. 

Thrice happy will we be, if we have the sense, the 
grace, not only to accept but to read and meditate 
on them in the same spirit in which they have been 
composed. They lead us at once to the shores of a 
new world—forever closed indeed to those overwise 
or carnal-minded Christians who pretend to sit in 
judgment on the “saints and servants of God,"—but 
a world daily opening with all its blessings to the 
poor in spirit and pure of heart; to the meek and 
merciful, to those who thirst after justice, and mourn 
for the continual humiliations of the Church, the 
blindness of her enemies, the sins of their brethren, 
and, above all, for their own sins. Many a moment 
of sweet communion with now glorified beings who, 
while on earth, were of the same household of the 
faith, is here in store for the Catholic who, in the 
right tone of mind, will approach this spiritual world 



6 NOTE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 

■ ' — » 

into which the “ Lives of the Saints” introduce us; 
and none, perhaps, more impressively than this truly 
mysteribus “ Life of the American Virgin, St. Rose.” 
We will not proceed far before we understand more 
clearly than ever, why it is that our Redeemer so 
often calls his Church, even in the present state of 
sorrow and trial, the “ Kingdom of Heaven.” 

We cannot close this note without expressing, in 
behalf of many who will thank us for it, our gratitude 
to the illustrious converts in England who have placed 
such treasures of learning and piety within our 
reach; and here, especially, to that servant of the 
Church whose name, “ beloved of God and men,” 
stands on the title page of this work. Before it 
pleased our heavenly Father to bring them among 
us, how many such treasures, now in our hands, 
were as pearls in the depths of the sea, unknown, 
unthought of, by the English and American Ca¬ 
tholics. 

With the exception of a few unavoidable changes 
in the following Preface prefixed to the English 
volume, which contained the Lives of two other ser¬ 
vants of God, viz, the Blessed Colomba of Rieti, and 
St. Juliana Falconieri, the present is 4 faithful reprint 
of the English editi m. 


E. J. S. 


PREFACE. 


The Life of S. Rose is translated from the 
French of Father Jean Baptist Feuillet, a Dominican 
friar, and Missionary Apostolic in the Antilles; the 
copy which has been followed is the third edition, 
published at Paris in 1671, the year of her canoniza¬ 
tion by Clement X. 

Catholic readers, who may not have been in the 
habit of reading the Lives of the Saints, and especially 
the authentic Process of the Congregation of Sacred 
Rites, may be a little startled with the Life of S. 
Rose. The visible intermingling of the natural 
and supernatural worlds, which seems to increase as 
the saints approach through the grace of God to 
their first innocence, may even offend where persons 
have been in the habit of paring and bating down 
the “unearthly” in order to evade objections and 
lighten the load of the controversialist, rather than 
of meditating with awe and thankfulness and deep 
self-abasement on the wonders of God in His saints, 
or of really sounding the depths of Christian philo¬ 
sophy, and mastering the principles and general laws 
which are discernable even in the supernatural regions 
of hagiology. The habit of always thinking first 
how any tenet, or practice, or fact, is most conve¬ 
niently presentable to an adversary, may soon, and 
almost imperceptibly lead to profaneness, by intro- 

(7) 


8 


PREIA.CE. 


ducing the spirit of rationalism into matters of faith; 
and to judge from the works.of our greatest Catholic 
divines, it would appear that the deeper theologian a 
man is the less does he give way to this studious 
desire of making difficulties easy at any cost short 
of denying what is positively de fide. They seem to 
handle truth religiously just in the way that God is 
pleased to give it us, rather than to see what they 
can make of it themselves by shaping it for contro¬ 
versy, and so by dint of skilful manipulation squeeze 
it through a difficulty. The question is, not “What 
will men say of this ? How will this sound in con¬ 
troversy? Will not this be objected to by heretics?” 
but, “Is this true? Is this kind of thing approved 
by the Church ? Then what good can I get out of it 
for my own soul? Ought not my views to be deeper 
than they are ?” The judiciousness of publishing 
in England what are actually classical works of piety 
in Catholic countries is a further question, which the 
result alone will decide, and that possibly at no very 
distant date. All that need be said here is, that it 
has not been done in haste, in blindness, or in heed¬ 
lessness, but after grave counsel and with high sanc¬ 
tion. 

If, then, any one unaccustomed to the literature 
of Catholic countries, and with their ears uncon¬ 
sciously untuned by the daily dissonance of the errors 
and unbelief around them, should be startled by this 
volume, let him pause before he pronounces judg- 


PREFACE. 


9 


men;. Persons, who have unfortunately more call 
to defend their religion than time to study it, fancy 
they gain a sort of mock strength, or at least pleasantly 
and triumphantly surprise an adversary, when they 
throw overboard to his mercy, as sailors throw meat 
to a shark, anything wonderful, as though it were 
necessarily superstitious. But in this way a man 
may make wild work of solemn things without know¬ 
ing it, and whets rather than stays the appetite of his 
opponent, who presently follows him up again with 
a new, and, indeed, in his case, an unanswerable 
charge of inconsistency. A Catholic, do what he 
will, cannot weed his religion of the supernatural; 
and to discriminate between the supernatural and the 
superstitious is a long work and a hard one, a work 
of study and of reverent meditation. 0 how hard 
it is, if men do not keel to meditate, to hear a thing 
denied all around them every day, and yet maintain 
a joyous and unshaken faith therein ! 

In this volume we have the life of a holy woman 
of South America in the seventeenth century, taken 
from the authentic processes; and when the series gets 
on, and the reader finds men and women of different 
centuries and vastly different characters, of the hills of 
Apulia and Calabria, from the plains of Lombardy and 
the stony forests of Umbria; from Spanish convents 
and French seminaries; from the dark streets of a 
Flemish tcwn, the margin of a Dutch canal, or the ilex 
woods of Portugal from the cifr'?s of Germanv and 



10 


PREFACE. 


Hungary, or the mines and riversides of South 
America; popes and simple nuns, bishops and common 
beggars, the learned cardinal and the Capuchin lay- 
brother, the aged missionary, and the boy in the Jesuit 
noviciate, the Roman princess, and the poor bed-rid¬ 
den Estatica, before the Reformation and after it—all 
presenting us with the same picture, the same super¬ 
natural actors, the same familiarity with good and evil 
spirits, the same daily colloquial intercourse with the 
unseen world, the same apparently grotesque anecdotes 
of miraculous control over nature—and the Lives nar¬ 
rating all this translated from four or five different 
languages, and composed by grave theologians and doc¬ 
tors—the erudite Augustinian, the judicious Domini¬ 
can, the good Franciscan full of simplicity and unction, 
the fluent Oratorian so eminent in devotional biogra¬ 
phy, the sound, calm, discriminating Jesuit, who, above 
all others, has learned how to exercise the constant 
caution of criticism without injuring his spiritual¬ 
mindedness—when all this is before him, crowned 
with the solemn and infalliable decrees of canoniza¬ 
tion and beatification, it may seem to him then a serious 
question whether he himself is not out of harmony 
with the mind of the Church, whether his faith is not 
too feeble, and his distrust of God’s wonders too over¬ 
weening and too bold; whether, in short, for the good 
of his own soul he may not have the principle of 
rationalism to unlearn, and the temper of faith, 
sound, reasonable, masculine, yet childlike faith, to 



PREFACE. 


11 


broaden, to heighten, and to deepen in himself by 
the very contemplation of what may now be in some 
degree a scandal to him—namely, Quam mirabilis est 
Deus in sanctis suis. 

In order to furnish to the reader the theological 
view of this important question, the more important 
now from the envenomed determination with which 
the enemy of souls has recently directed his assaults 
against Catholic hagiology, that portion of Benedict 
XIVth’s grand work on the Canonization of Saints, 
which treats of heroic virtue and what constitutes its 
heroicity, raptures, visions, miracles, and the tests 
the Church employs in the investigation of them, as 
well as the principles by which her decisions are 
guided in the discernment of spirits and all that is 
mystical and preternatural, has been translated from 
the Latin, and is published in the Series uniform 
with it.* The theological reputation of this great 
modern pope renders it unnecessary to say anything 
of the value of a work which is as indispensable to 
confessors and spiritual directors, as it is important 
for those who wish to obtain anything like a clear 
insight into Christian philosophy and its connection 
with theology. 

There is something very consoling in observing 
now the great spirit of unbelief has of late years con¬ 
centrated his energies against the Catholic saints aua 

* 3 Vols l2mo; London Richardson & ctau. 



12 


PREFACE. 


their wonderful biographies. It is as though amid 
the darkness of his clouded intelligence that fallen 
Ruler had shrewdly divined the road which the Holy 
Spirit had gone in the guidance of the Church. The 
revived seriousness and activity which he saw all 
around him, the growing glory and lustre of Holy 
Church, the wonderful and almost unusual outpour¬ 
ing of miraculous powers, the solemn exhibitions of 
the mysterious and the preternatural in the valleys 
of the Tyrol and of Tuscany, as well as elsewhere, 
together with the honest abandonment of the old 
fortresses of historical falsehood, which fall to the 
ground, temple and tower, almost daily; and the re¬ 
paration which the erudition of heretic scholars is 
continually making to the honour and purity of the 
Church, even in what are called her dark ages, might 
seem to have bred in him a grave suspicion that con¬ 
troversy was outworn, and its day over; and tha,t 
charges, which one writer took on tradition from 
another, and reiterated till he came to believe them 
himself, had ceased, which was after all the great 
point, to command the belief of others. He saw that 
the earnestness which men began to feel about their 
souls would make it necessary for him to change his 
point of attack and his method of operations: he 
directed his fury therefore against the virtues and 
marvels of the Catholic saints. When a blind instinct, 
feeling for the truth in the dark, outside the com¬ 
munion of the one Old h old, sought a refuge :n the 


PR EFACE. 


13 


biographies of the Saxon and Norman worUie 3 , 
who were once the glory of our poor country, that 
moment, although uncongenial doctrine and imita¬ 
tion of Catholic usage had managed to obtain just an 
adequate amount of querulous toleration, a very torrent 
of profane fury and infidel reviling was poured out 
uponhagiology; it was like an eruption; protestantism, 
stung and lacerated by the burning load attempted 
to be put upon it, writhed with fierce and vehement 
contortions, and flung forth its fire and lava, like En- 
celadus hopelessly disquieted beneath his incumbent 
Etna. Since then, still unrelieved from his pro¬ 
phetic fear, the Enemy of souls has directed the 
brilliant but shallow and ungodly eloquence of irre¬ 
ligious reviews against the canonizechservants of God, 
although neither sparkling sarcasm, nor wordy antithe¬ 
sis, nor patronising impertinence avail to hide the fool¬ 
ishness, the want of depth, and the absence of all grasp 
of philosophical principles or sound historical learning 
which these poor effusions show; neither is it at all im¬ 
probable that volumes of the present Series may evoke 
from the same baffled spirit a more bitter invective 
still. But what then ? Is it not a consolation for 
us in our work, to see how the Evil One dreads it by 
his furious warfare, and points out and magnifies its 
importance by his very rage against it ? New, as 
before, the foolishness of the cross, the simplicity of 
the faith, the calm trustful dignity of the Church, 

and the untremulous voice of her infallible decree 

2 



14 


PREFACE. 


will prevail: the noisy profaneness will spread know¬ 
ledge without imparing faith; and the lowly obscure 
disciples of our Blessed Lord will not be robbed of 
their consolation through an idle and a craven fear 
of provoking a pointless taunt. 

We must not, therefore, necessarily conclude that 
scandal is being given if a clamour is raised, or if 
the real latent infidelity of the clamour be clothed in 
the pomp of sober words or frightened piety. Piety 
is never frightened but where faith is weak; and 
although it would be wicked indeed to run so much 
as a risk of offending out of a mere spirit of wanton 
enterprise, it would be worse still to impair our 
heritage of truth, to withhold now what the Evil 
One himself is showing us is indeed now , and to keep 
profaneness quiet at the expense of His honour who 
worketh wonders, and the honour of those to whom 
we look, not only as the instruments whereby He 
works His wonders, but also as our advocates with His 
bounty and His pity, living and acting around His 
Throne to-day. 0 in how many may not weak faith 
be strengthened, and by how many may not danger¬ 
ous and unsound principles be abandoned, and from how 
many minds may not stray sympathies, with heresy, 
be weeded out! and how many hearts may there not 
be moved to higher things, to loftier aims, to more 
heavenly vocations, by this exhibition of the saints 
of God ! How many are there who by these very 
Lives have been already won from their tearful 


PREFACE. 


15 


wanderings to their Shepherd’s fold ! and L»w many 
more may not God have predestined yet to come the 
same sweet roAd under the same gentle compulsion ! 
And while the spirits of unbelief are being strangled 
by the power and the simplicity of these holy ones 
of God in hearts and consciences here and there, 
surely if we have faith in our exorcisms, we shall not 
be alarmed if they glare and cry and menace fear¬ 
fully, remembering that when the King of saints 
bade the dark spirit go forth from the harmless boy, 
he went forth “ crying out and greatly tearing him, 
and he became as one deadand it is written that 
at the very sight of Jesus, “ when he had seen Him, 
immediately the spirit troubled him, and being 
thrown upon the ground, he rolled about foaming.” 
There is not a word of this which is not instructive 
allegory to those who see it spiritually verified 
around them now : the presence of Jesus a trouble, 
then a pain, but a loving and merciful exorcism at 
the last. 

F. W. Faber. 

St. Wilfrid's, 

Feast of our Lady of Redemption , 1$47. 














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CONTENTS 


CHATTER. P4GE. 

I. Her country, her birth, her inclinations, an. the 
vow of virginity which she made at the age 
of five years.21 

II. Her obedience, the respect she had for her pa¬ 

rents, and the assistance she rendered them 28 

III. S Rose takes the habit of the Third Order of 

S. Dominic, in imitation of S. Catherine of 
Sienna, whom she had taken for her model 37 

IV. Her humility, her incomparable purity of heart, 

and other virtues.44 

V. Her fasts, her disciplines, and the other austeri¬ 
ties with which she macerated her body . 52 

VI. Of the sharp-pointed crown which she wore on 

her head, and of the hardness of her bed . 64 

VII. Of her solitude, and the hermitage which she 

had built in her father’s garden, that she 
might live quite separated from men . .75 

VIII. Jesus Christ espouses the Blessed Rose in the 

presence of the ever Blessed Virgin . . 34 

IX, Of the close union with God to which she at¬ 

tained by means of mental prayer . .91 

X. She is tormented with interior pains to so fright¬ 

ful a degree that she is examined by some di¬ 
vines, who declare her state to be from God 98 
XL Of the familiar manner in which Jesus Christ, 
the Blessed Virgin, S. Catharine of Sienna 

17 



XV111 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER ?AOE 

and her Guardian Angel conversed with her; 
and of the victories which she gained over 
the devils who tempted her . . .109 

XII. Of her invincible patience under persecution, 

in sickness, and in her other sufferings . 121 
XIII Of her love for hei Divine Spouse Jesus Christ, 
and of the miracle which she entreated Him 
to work to inflame the hearts of men with 
His Divine love .... 129 

XIV. Of her devotion towards the most Blessed Sa¬ 
crament, in defence of which she once pre¬ 
pared herself to suffer martydom . .140 

XV Of her devotion to an image of our Blessed 
Lady, to the sign of the Cross, and to her 
dear mistress S. Catherine of Sienna . . 150 

XVI. Of her zeal for the salvation of souls, and 

her care in assisting the poor in their sick¬ 
ness and necessities.161 

XVII. Of her confidence in God, and of the protection 

she received from Him in her necessities . 174 
XVIII. God makes known to S. Rose that a monas¬ 
tery of nuns will be built in Lima, under 
the name of S. Catherine of Sienna, and 
reveals to her several other secrets . ,>f81 

XIX. Of her last illness and death . . . 188 

XX. Of the honour which S. Rose received after 

death, and of the translation of her body 
which took place some time afterwards . 203 

XXI. Of the revelation which several persons had 

of the glory of S. Rose . . .219 

XXII. Of the miracles which Almighty God worked 

throt-gL the merits of S. Rose . . . 225 



CONTENTS. 


XIX 


N 1. Of the conversions which the prayers of S. 

Rose obtained ..226 

2. Two dead persons raised to life, and many 
miraculously cured by touching the body 
of S. Rose, and invoking her assistance in . 
their infirmities ..... 233 

3. After St Rose’s death many sick persons were 

restored to health, and several women as¬ 
sisted in their labour, by touching her veil 
or some part of her dress.240 

4. Several persons afflicted with dysentery, quin- 

sey, fever, frenzy, and other maladies, have 
been cured by powder from the sepulchre 
of our Saint.245 

5. Pictures of S. Rose applied to persons afflict¬ 
ed with leprosy, quinsey, gout, headache, < 
and other infirmities, have been the means 

of restoring health to them . . , 252 

XXIII. Of the efforts made at Rome to obtain from 

the Pope her canonization .... 258 






THE LIFE 


o i 

SAINT ROSE OE LIMA. 


CHAPTER I. 

IIER COUNTRY, HER BIRTH, HER INCLINATIONS, AND 
THE VOW OF VIRGINITY WHICH SHE MADE AT 
THE AGE OF FIVE YEARS. 

Pur blessed Rose, the first spiritual flower 
which Divine Providence planted and cultivated 
in the richest part of the New World, was born 
on the 20th day of April, in the year 1586, at 
Lima, the capital of Peru, in South America. 
Her father was Gasper Florez, and her mother 
Mary Oliva, both more considerable by their 
birth than by their fortune. This virtuous wo¬ 
man, who had been several times in danger of 
losing her life by the excessive pains she had 
endured in her other confinements, was pre¬ 
served from them at the birth of our Saint, who 
came into the world differently from other chil¬ 
dren. wrapped up in a double cuticle, like a rose, 

( 21 ) 



22 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


whose bud is surrounded by leaves as soon as it 
begins to appear. 

The lady Isabel of Herrera, her mother’s sis¬ 
ter, being chosen as her godmother, gave her 
the name of Isabel in baptism ; but three months 
after, as she slept in her cradle, her mother and 
several other persons, who did not all belong to 
the family, having perceived on her countenance 
a beautiful rose, called her from that time by 
no other name than Rose, on account of this 
prodigy. 

Her godmother, thinking herself slighted by 
this change of name, was offended at it, paid 
lived at variance with her sister, till Divine Pro¬ 
vidence, who watched over the interests of our 
Saint, put an end to this unhappy dispute by 
inspiring his Lordship, the archbishop of Lima, 
to give her the name of Rose in confirmation. 

Rose, when older, had some scruple about it 
on learning that it was not the name'she had re¬ 
ceived in baptism. She thought it was an effect 
of the complaisance or of the vanity of her pa¬ 
rents, who wished to make her beauty more at¬ 
tractive by this agreeable name. Disturbed by 
this conduct, which she thought unworthy of the 
spirit of a Christian, she went to the church of 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


23 


the Friar Preachers. Having entered the Chapel 
of the Rosary, she cast herself at the feet of the 
Blessed Virgin, to make known to her her un¬ 
easiness. Our Blessed Lady immediately con¬ 
soled her, assuring her that the name of Rose 
was pleasing to her Son Jesus Christ, and that, 
as a mark of her affection, she would also honour 
her with her own name, and that henceforward 
she should be called Rose of S. Mary. So that 
we may say that of all the saints whose names 
Almighty God has changed by an extraordinary 
favour, our blessed Rose is the first and perhaps 
the only one whose surname has been also 
changed by heaven. 

Her infancy had a lively resemblance to that 
of the seraphic saint, Catherine of Sienna. Never 
was she troublesome by teazing cries; and never 
was she seen to shed tears, excepting once, when 
her nurse had carried her to a neighbouring 
house, where this sweet child wept, as if to show 
her sorrow in being drawn from solitude, the 
sweetness of which she began to feel in the house 
of her father. The holy Fathers teach us, that 
the just man cannot do or suffer any thing vir¬ 
tuously without the help of grace, but that Al¬ 
mighty God works by his grace many wonders 




24 


ST ROSE OF LIMA. 


in his saints without them: which is shown in 
<he blessed Rose, who, when only three months 
old, gave proof of an heroic patience; for, some 
one having thoughtlessly pinched her thumb by 
shutting a chest hastily, she concealed the pain 
it gave her: her mother having hastened to her 
at the first news of the accident, she hid the 
finger, and did not let it appear that she had 
been hurt. The injury grew worse afterwards 
from her silence, and violent remedies were ne¬ 
cessary, which caused her to lose a part of the 
nail. * The surgeon employed pincers to extract 
by the roots that part which still remained in 
the flesh, and was greatly surprised to remark 
that, during this painful operation, she did not 
shed a tear, utter a scream, or even change 
countenance. It was not on this occasion alone 
that she gave proof of her patience; she prac 
tised it equally whenever she had,^ny thing to 
suffer. She endured with an inconceivable con 
stancy, the pain inflicted by cutting off, with scis¬ 
sors, part of her ear which had become corrupted. 
At the age of four year 3 she was troubled with 
a sort of disorder in the head ; and her mother, 
who loved her tenderly, wishing to dress it 
herself, used a certain powder so corrosive and 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


25 


burning, that it caused her to shudder fr >m head 
to foot; still she never complained, though this 
remedy caused a number of ulcers in her head, 
which gave her excessive pain. As coral hardens 
in the waves, which are the emblem of affliction, 
so we might say, that the patience of our Saint 
increased with the greatness of her sufferings; 
for, during six weeks, the surgeon who attended 
her cut off every day a portion of flesh, that a 
new skin might grow in its place, and she suf¬ 
fered this torture with an invincible patience. 

Almighty God, who designed her to be a living 
image of His crucified life, did not leave her long 
without suffering; and he permitted that two 
years after she should be afflicted with a polypus 
in her nose, which grew so large that they had 
recourse to the surgeon to remove it, which he 
did in three different operations, during which 
she evinced a super-human patience, suffering 
this pain with a joy that seemed miraculous, and 
much resembled that which many martyrs have 
shown in the dreadful torments inflicted upon 
them by their executioners. 

This early apprenticeship in the school of Cah 
vary, where she learned from Jesus Christ cru¬ 
cified, to suffer all sorts of pains and afflictions, 
3 



26 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


disposed our young Bose to offer tc God, from 
her infancy, the agreeable odour of the ardent 
charity with which her heart was inflamed. 

She received most happily the first rays of 
Divine grace, and her little brother contributed 
to this; for playing near her one day, he threw 
accidentally, a quantity of mud on her hair. Be¬ 
ing naturally neat, she was vexed at his care¬ 
lessness, and was on the point of going away, 
when he said to her with a gravity beyond his 
years, “ My dear sister, do not be angry at this 
accident; for the curled ringlets of girls are 
hellish cords which bind the hearts of men, and 
miserably draw them into eternal flames.” Bose 
received these words, which he uttered with the 
zeal of a preacher, as an oracle from heaven: 
she entered into herself, and renouncing for ever 
the vanities of the world, she gave herself en¬ 
tirely to God, and conceived an extreme horror 
for sin. From that time she felt herself power¬ 
fully drawn to prayer; and she applied herself 
to it so assiduously, that she was not content 
with giving to it part of the day and the greatest 
part of the night; we may even say, that sleep 
was no interruption to her piayer: for her ima¬ 
gination represented to her during her repose 



ST. ROSE OF LtMA. 


27 


the absorbing idea she had formed to herself of 
her Divine Spouse in the fervour of her prayers, 
and of her converse with Him during the day. 
In this sacred intercourse she received a lively 
inspiration from Almighty God to follow in the 
footsteps of S. Catherine of Sienna, by a perfect 
imitation of the virtues of this seraphic lover of 
God: and because virginity, joined to baptismal 
innocence, and to the flower of youth, is a dou¬ 
ble lily, which sheds its splendor on the spouses 
of Jesus Christ, so Rose, moved by the Spirit 
of Gpd, consecrated to Him irrevocably and by 
vow, at the age of five years, her virginal purity, 
by the promise she gave Him never to have any 
other Spouse but Him alone. Thus we may say 
of St. Rose, what S. Ambrose said of S. Agnes, 
that her piety and virtue were above her years, 
and beyond the strength of nature. 

As soon as she had made this vow, she cut off 
her hair, unknown to her mother, in order to 
manifest to the Spouse she had chosen, that by 
thus disfiguring herself she intended rather to 
disgust than to please men; and that she abso- 
lutely renounced the world, with which she never 
wished to have any intercourse. From the tes¬ 
timony of her confessors, she began to have file 



28 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


use of reason when this heavenly ardour filled 
her soul; and this generous action was so pleas¬ 
ing to Almighty God, that he showered down 
upon her His choicest benedictions, and enriched 
her with so many graces, that she preserved her 
baptismal innocence till her death. 


CHAPTER II. 

HER OBEDIENCE, THE RESPECT SHE HAD FOR HER 
PARENTS, AND THE ASSISTANCE SHE RENDERED 
THEM. 

To obey the parents from whom we have re¬ 
ceived our life, is only the effect of an ordinary 
degree of virtue; and there would have been 
nothing remarkable in the- obedience of the 
blessed Rose, if she had contented herself with 
simply fulfilling this duty: but she infinitely 
increased its merit by perfectly complying with 
that which she owed to her parents, without fail¬ 
ing to accomplish what God Almighty required 
of her. She managed so well, that she executed 
whatever her father and mother commanded her, 
without omitting the least part of her duty to- 





ST. ROSE OF LIMA, 


29 


wards God. Her mother, like many otners who 
love their children more for the world than for 
heaven, often begged her to take care of he? 
beauty, and even desired her to use cosmetics 
and paint to preserve its freshness; but Rose, 
who knew this to be contrary to modesty and 
simplicity, which are the only ornaments of 
Christian beauty, entreated her so earnestly not 
to oblige her to do this, and not to imitate those 
mothers who sacrifice the salvation of their chil¬ 
dren to their own ambition, that she, by degrees, 
induced her to think differently; thus making 
the law of the spirit victorious over that of the 
flesh, and causing the secret aversion with which 
her Divine Spouse inspired her for this worldly 
custom, to triumph over the unjust command 
she had received to conform to it. 

Another time her mother made her wear a 
garland of flowers on her head. Not thinking 
herself strong enough to effect a change in this 
command, she obeyed; but she sanctified her 
submission by the painful mortification with 
which she accompanied it: for God having 
brought to her mind the remembrance of the 

o 

cruel thorns which had composed his crown in 
His Passion, she took the garland, and fixed it 
3 * 



80 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


on her Load with a large needle, which she 
plunged so deeply into her head that it could 
not be drawn out without the help of a surgeon, 
who had much difficulty in doing it. Thus she 
contrived to elude, without resisting, the orders 
of her mother when they were openly opposed 
to the counsels of perfection ; and she punished 
herself severely when she obeyed her in any 
thing that partook of the vanity of the world. 
This fidelity was most pleasing to her Divine 
Spouse, and she perceived by a remarkable cir¬ 
cumstance, that she could not in the least de¬ 
part from it without offending him. 

One day having put on a pair of scented 
gloves in order to oblige her mother, she had 
no sooner begun to wear them than her hands 
became cold and benumbed, and soon after she 
felt in them so violent a heat, that notwith¬ 
standing the love of our Saint for sufferings, she 
was obliged to take off the gloves which caused 
this torture; and God, to show the blessed Rose 
that the little breath of vanity which had in¬ 
duced her, under the specious pretext of obe¬ 
dience, to wear these gloves, had inflamed the 
zeal of her Divine Spouse, showed her the same 
gl<< ves in the right, surrounded by flames. From 



ST. ROSE JF LIMA. 


31 


tuat time she never obeyed her mother in any¬ 
thing that was agreeable to the world or to na¬ 
ture, without joining some act of mortification to 
her obedience. Her mother having absolutely 
commanded her to remove the pieces of wood 
which she had secretly put into her pillow, she did 
so; but she put in their place so great a quantity 
of wool, and stuffed it in such a manner, that her 
pillow might have been taken for a log of wood 
covered with linen, from its hardness. 

The stratagem which she practised in order 
to avoid appearing at assemblies, or accompany¬ 
ing her mother in the visits she paid to her 
friends and relations, was not less surprising; 
for she rubbed her eyelids with pimento, which 
is a very sharp burning sort of Indian pepper: 
by this means she escaped going into company, 
for it made her eyes red as fire, and so painful, 
that she could not bear the light. Her mother 
having found out this artifice, reprimanded her 
for it, and mentioned the example of Ferdinand 
Perez, who had lost his sight by a similar act of 
indiscretion; Rose answered modestly, “ It would 
be much better for me, my dear mother, to be 
blind all the rest of my life, than to be obliged 
to see the vanities and follies of the world.” Af- 



32 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


ter tins answer, her mother, seeing clearly that it 
was a repugnance for these visits, and for the 
dress she was compelled to wear on these occa¬ 
sions, which caiusel her to inflict this pain on 
herself, no longer urged her to accompany her, 
and allowed her to dress as she liked, in a poor 
stuff dress, which she wore w T ith great satisfac¬ 
tion ; for she sought nothing but contempt and 
abjection. In all indifferent things S. Rose 
obeyed willingly, and never received a command 
from her mother which she did not cheerfully 
fulfil. Her mother wishing one day to try her 
obedience, ordered her to embroider some flowers 
in the wrong way, Rose obeyed blindly, and 
spoiled her work, and her mother, feigning to be 
angry, reproved her for it. This truly obedient 
daughter answered, that she had perceived that 
her work was good for nothing, but had not dared 
to disobey the order given her; that it was of no 
consequence to her in what manner she traced 
a flower, but that she could not fail in obedience 
to her mother’s orders. For this reason she 
never began her work without asking her mo¬ 
ther’s leave, and told one of her friends, who 
seemed astonished at it, that she did it expressly 
to join to her work the merit of obedience. 



ST. ROSE OF 1 [MA. 


83 


Her obedience did not concern her mother 
only, to whom she was so submissive that she 
never drank without her permission, and dared, 
not begin her work without her express order: 
it extended even to the servant of the house, 
whom she respected as her mistress, and whom 
she obeyed always joyfully, particularly when 
she was cross and ill-tempered. Her mother, 
who was of a bilious temperament and often an¬ 
gry, sometimes forbade her to drink; and as she 
did not know that her virtuous daughter never 
would drink without her permission, Rose was 
often known to pass six days without drinking. 
Her parents having taken her to Canta, a very 
unhealthy part of the country, she was seized 
with a contraction of the nerves* in her hands 
and feet; and as this arose from cold, her mother 
made her wear skins, the hair of which was very 
irritating, and desired her not to take them off. 
Rose bore with them for several days without 
mentioning the insupportable heat they caused, 
that she might not be wanting in obedience; but 
her hands and feet became so inflamed in con¬ 
sequence, that numbers of little blisters were 
formed in them, which afterwards became very 
painful ulcers. 



84 ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 

Obedience generally terminates with .ife v but 
the blessed Rose manifested it even when in 
% her tomb The mother prioress of the Con¬ 
vent of Nuns of S. Dominic at Lima, com¬ 
manded the picture of Rose, in virtue of the 
obedience which every one in the house owed to 
her, to enable them to find a silver spoon which 
a servant belonging to the monastery had lost, 
that they might avoid any rash judgment of in¬ 
nocent persons; and as if our Saint had ani¬ 
mated the colours of her picture with that spirit 
of obedience which had made her so submissive 
to God, and to His creatures for His love, the 
prioress perceived, immediately, on the table the 
lost spoon; and we might say, that the picture 
placed it there, to represent the perfect obe¬ 
dience of the original. Who could express her 
exact obedience to her parents during her whole 
life, her respect and the tender love she bore 
them ? At the times when she was suffering most 
from weakness, she generally spent more than 
half the night in working to help them in their 
necessities; and though she devoted twelve 
hours every day to mental prayer, she did more 
work than another, who had less to do, would 
have done in four iays; and her work had so 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


35 


much beauty and delicacy, that it seemed to 
surpass art and nature. 

She was a perfect mistress of needlework, 
either in designing flowers, or executing them 
in embroidery or in tapestry; and what is sur¬ 
prising is, that though her mind was often ele¬ 
vated to God, and absorbed in the contemplation 
of His perfections while she was working, yet 
her hand guided her work as perfectly as if her 
mind was solely intent upon it. 

Besides her needlework she cultivated a lit¬ 
tle garden, in which she grew violets and other 
flowers, which she sold to help her parents in 
their necessities; and as all her industry was in¬ 
sufficient to save them from poverty, she con¬ 
fessed, ingenuously, to a great servant of God, 
that Jesus Christ, her Divine Spouse, supplied 
the deficiency by secret and wonderful means. 
She tended them in sickness with incredible as¬ 
siduity ; she was always at their bedside; she 
passed days and nights there, and only left them 
to perform for them elsewhere some other ser¬ 
vice. She made their bed, prepared their medi¬ 
cine, and was ready by day and by night to per¬ 
form foi them the vilest and most difficult ser¬ 


vices. 



36 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


I must not conclude this chapter without 
speaking of the ineffable joy she procured for 
her mother, who would otherwise have been 
overwhelmed with grief in seeing her depart out 
of this life. This blessed Saint, when on her 
death-bed, foreseeing the anguish her mother 
would feel at her death, earnestly begged her 
Divine Spouse to console her in this affliction ; 
and He did so by bestowing upon her so great a 
plenitude of joy, that she juridically deposed 
that she felt an extraordinary joy when this death 
took place, which would otherwise have drawn 
from her abundance of tears and sighs. She 
further testified, that this favour not only ren¬ 
dered her insensible to this great loss, but took 
possession of her mind so powerfully, that for 
several days she could scarcely bear its violence, 
and that Almighty God had shown her, by this 
experience, the happiness which her holy daugh¬ 
ter enjoyed in heaven, and the torrent of delights 
which He poured out upon her soul in that happy 
abode. 


ST. RCSE OF LIMA. 


37 


CHAPTER III 

S. ROSE TAKES THE HABIT OF THE THIRD ORDER OF 
S DOMINIC, IN IMITATION OF S. CATHERINE OF 
SIENNA, WHOM SHE HAD TAKEN FOR HER MODEL. 

If any one should attempt to compare the 
lives of S. Catherine of Sienna and of S. Rose, 
he would find so great a resemblance between 
these two lovers of the Son of God, that he would 
have some difficulty in discovering whether this 
sweet flower sprang forth in the Indies, or 
whether it was transplanted from Italy into 
Peru; for in S. Rose all the characteristics of 
S. Catherine of Sienna were to be seen; the same 
manner of living, the same inclinations, the same 
favours from God, and so great a similarity in 
figure and countenance, that one might easily 
have been taken for the other. 

S. Rose having cut off her hair after making 
her vow of virginity, seemed thereby to have de¬ 
prived any one who might seek her in marriage 
of the hope of succeeding in this design. But 
4 



38 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


the advantages she had received from nature, 
offered an innocent opposition to the resolution 
she had made to preserve, until death, the pre¬ 
cious lily of her virginity; for her extreme 
beauty, the refinement of her mind, her delight¬ 
ful conversation, and her virtue itself, captivated 
many hearts by their charms, and drew towards 
her admirers from all parts. 

In order to extinguish these rising flames in 
the hearts of others, she invented all sorts of 
means to disfigure herself; she made her face 
pale and livid with fasting, she sought to destroy 
her delicate white complexion, she washed her 
hands in hot lime to take the skin off them ; and 
to prevent others from feeling any pleasure to 
which the sight of her might give rise, she shut 
herself up closely in the house, and went out but 
very seldom and when it was quite necessary; 
and having been taken to Canta, a little village 
near one of the most celebrated mines in Peru, 
she remained there four entire years without 
leaving the house ; she would not even go to see 
a beautiful garden close to the door of the house 
where she lived, from which she might have 
easily viewed those famous machines called 
moles, for which Faru is renowned. 




GT. ROSE CF LIMA. 


39 


Notwithstanding all these precautions, she 
was not able to prevent several persons from 
seeking her in marriage. Amongst others, one 
of the most distinguished ladies in the city, as 
much delighted with her virtue as with her 
beauty, wished her only son to marry her; she J 
openly made the request to St. Rose’s parents, 
who, having eleven children to provide for, re¬ 
ceived the proposal most favourably, thinking 
the alliance would be very advantageous to their 
family. 

Rose was the only person to whom this offer 
was disagreeable ; she blamed herself for it, and 
that frail beauty which brought upon her this 
great misfortune; and seeing that there was no 
means of escaping but by openly declaring that 
she would never consent to marry, fiaving a hor¬ 
ror of the very thought of it, she made known 
her resolution with a firmness which surprised 
her parents, though it did not make them give 
up the hope of inducing her to comply with their 
wishes. They employed threats and caresses, 
and seeing her inflexible in her resolution, they 
tried the effects of ill-treatment; they gave her 
blows, and loaded her with injuries; in a word, 
S. Rose had the. same sufferings to endure as 



40 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


were inflicted m S. Catherine of Sienna by her 
mother, for a similar reason. 

After this storm she sought, in the third or¬ 
der of S. Dominic, a port where she might be 
secure, all the rest of her life, from the furious 
tempests which the devil would be sure to raise 
against her purity as long as she remained in 
the world. When her resolution was known, 
the nuns of the most celebrated monasteries in 
Lima wished her to take their habit. Turibius, 
the archbishop of Lima, requested her to enter 
a convent of S. Clare, which his niece, Mary de 
Quignonez, had just finished building, that thus 
she might be the foundation-stone of the holy 
edifice; but Rose, who, from the age of five 
years, had proposed to herself S. Catherine of 
Sienna as the model for her imitation, thought 
it was not sufficient to copy her innocence and 
her other virtues, but that she must embrace the 
same state of life, which would not prevent her 
from continuing to assist her parents. 

Almighty God confirmed her in this resolution 
by two miracles. The first took place when she 
had the intention of going to the Monastery of 
the Incarnation, where the nuns were anxiously 
expecting her. Before setting out, she went to 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


41 


bid farewell to our Blessed Lady in who Chapel 
of the Rosary, bebnging to the Convent of S. 
Dominic, and there remained immovable on her 
knees at the foot of the altar; when her prayer 
was finished, although she made several efforts 
to rise, she could not succeed; she called her 
brother, who was in the church, to her assist¬ 
ance ; he took her hand, and pulled her violently 
without being able to move her from the spot; 
this appearing to her to be a sign from heaven, 
she resolved not to prosecute her design, but to 
return home. She had no sooner come to this 
determination than she was^ able to rise and 
leave the chapel without difficulty. 

Almighty God showed her by another miracle 
that he would have her choose the order of Friar 
Preachers in preference to any other, in imita¬ 
tion of S. Catherine of Sienna, who was one of 
its brightest ornaments. Amongst the almost 
innumerable quantity of differently coloured but¬ 
terflies which are to be seen in the vast plains 
of Lima, one, prettily marked with white and 
black, the colours of the habit of S. Dominic’s 
order, came and fluttered round her; she con¬ 
sidered this as a heavenly indication that she 
was to accomplish the design she had formerly 
4* 




42 


SI. ROSE OF LIMA. 


conceived of becoming a religious m the third 
order of this great patriarch. She received the 
habit solemnly, at the age of twenty years, from 
the hands of the Rev. Father Alphonso Velas¬ 
quez, on the 10th day of August, 1606, with 
much satisfaction; but she -would have quitted 
it before her profession, for three reasons, if she 
had not been specially guided by Almighty God, 
whose will it was that she should remain in the 
order of S. Dominic. 

In the first place, Don Gonzalez, a very great 
benefactor of hers, arid who possessed great in¬ 
fluence over her mind, pressed her earnestly to 
become a discalceated Carmelite, offering to pro¬ 
cure her the necessary portion, and assigning as 
his reason, that a cloistered life was more suita¬ 
ble to her than remaining with her parents amid 
the bustle of the world. 

Secondly, she thought that as she wore a white 
habit, this dress required greater innocence than 
hers; and that as her life did not come up to the 
perfection of this new state, she was deceiving 
the world by a false appearance of virtue under 
this holy habit. 

Thirdly, as she had only quitted her secular 
dress that she might live unknown and forgot- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


43 


ten by men, she was surprised to find that her 
new state of a religious person, instead of keep¬ 
ing her - concealed, showed her forth as a light in 
the house of God, and that her reputation was- 
so universally diffused over the town, that she 
was the only subject of conversation, was pointed 
out in the streets, distinguished from others, and 
praised by every one. Her modesty suffered 
inconceivable pain from these praises, especially 
when she knew that some pious persons, from 
the high esteem they had for her virtue, made no 
difficulty of comparing her to S. Catherine of 
Sienna. Though these applauses gave her great 
pain, she still persevered in wearing the habit 
she had obtained from heaven by so many signs; 
for having conceived the design of quitting it in 
order to live more concealed, she went to kneel 
before the altar of the Holy Rosary to visit the 
Blessed Virgin, her usual refuge in the hour of 
distress, and as soon as she began her prayer she 
became sweetly insensible. Those who were in 
the chapel concluded immediately that she was 
in a rapture, and observing her closely, they re¬ 
marked that her countenance changed, being 
first pale, and then becoming fiery, and so lu¬ 
minous that it sent forth rays of brightness on 



44 


Sr. ROSE OF LIMA. 


every sile. When she came to herself after this 
ecstacy, she made known by the words which 
she poured forth from the abundance of her 
.heart, that Almighty God had confirmed her 
entrance into that holy order, and that she was 
resolved to live and die in it. 


CHAPTER IY. 

HER HUMILITY, HER INCOMPARABLE PURITY OF 
HEART, AND OTHER VIRTUES. 

Humility, which the holy fathers have always 
considered as the foundation of the other Chris¬ 
tian virtues, was so deeply rooted in the soul of 
S. Rose, that her labours seem to have been 
directed, all her life, to the contempt of herself, 
and to the practice of every sort of humiliation 
and abjection. 

To satisfy this predominant inclination of her 
heart, she did not find it sufficient to choose as 
her employment the vilest occupations of the 
house; she considered herself infinitely below 
the servant; and this sentiment of her miseries 
and unworthiness induced her often to cast her- 





ST. ROSE OF LIMA 


45 

self at the feet of a poor country girl named 
Marianne, who worked in the house, and en¬ 
treated her, earnestly, to strike her, to spit upon 
her, to trample her under foot, and to treat hei 
as the most abject and contemptible creature in 
the world. When she received blows or harsh 
words on account of the retired life she led, she 
thought she well deserved them, and that by hei 
own fault she had brought on herself this inju 
rious treatment, and she suffered it with humility 
and patience. When any misfortune happened 
to the state or to her family, she attributed it to 
her sins, which had drawn down this chastise¬ 
ment from heaven; and her humility made her 
usually say, that she was a burden, useless to 
the world, and odious to nature; that she was 
unworthy .to see the light; that she was a sink 
of corruption infecting the air; and that she 
was surprised that Almighty God did not cause 
the earth to open and swallow up so unhappy a 
creatufe, who, for her enormous offences, de¬ 
served to be annihilated 

As she was deeply penetrated with a sense of 
her own nothingness and misery, it was to her 
an insupportable cross to see herself honoured; 
her humility could not bear to hear a word of 



46 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


praise; and m this account hearing, one day, 
Michael Garrez, canon of the cathedral of Lima, 
who had come to visit Don Gonzalez, her inti¬ 
mate friend, praising her in the course of the 
conversation, and extolling the favours she had 
received from Almighty God, she retired into 
her chamber, where she began to strike her 
breast, to weep and to groan in the presence of 
God; and to punish herself for giving, as she 
thought, a false opinion of herself to men, she 
gave herself several violent blows on the head, 
£o force in more deeply the iron points of the 
crown which she always wore concealed under 
her veil. 

Having once performed an heroic act of vir¬ 
tue in something very difficult and repugnant to 
nature, the wife of Don Gonzalez, fearing that 
she would injure her health very much by these 
laborious works, spoke to her confessor, the Rev. 
Father Alphonso Velasquez, and begged him to 
reprimand her severely for it, and to forbid her 
to attempt works of piety beyond her strength. 
He follow'ed this advice, reproving her for hei 
action, and desiring her to perform nothing ex¬ 
traordinary, capable of injuring her health. S. 
Rose received this reproof respectfully, rejoicing 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


47 


before God to see herself despised, and to find 
humiliation in those acts of virtue from which 
she had so much reason to fear vain-glory and 
the esteem of men. 

During the three last years of her life, which 
she spent with Don Gonzalez, she obeyed his 
children, and all his servants: she did nothing 
without his express permission, and her humility 
often made her ask on her knees for a little wa¬ 
ter for the love of God, like a beggar, whose only 
means of subsistence is from the alms given him. 
In the time of sickness she Usually concealed the 
greater part of her sufferings; but when her 
symptoms and weakness made them evident, she 
spoke of them as the just reward of her sins; 
and when she made known the insupportable 
pains she endured in every part of her body, she 
did so to make others consider her as an abomi¬ 
nable sinner, whom Almighty God chastised 
thus rigorously in punishment of the crimes she 
had committed. 

She was not only thoroughly persuaded her¬ 
self, that she was infinitely guilty in the sight of 
Almighty God; but scarcely any one else, who 
saw her at confession, and witnessed the abun¬ 
dance of tears she shed at the feet of the priest, 



48 


ST. EOSE OF LIMA. 


and heard the half-stifled sobs to which her con¬ 
trite heart gave vent, would have failed to take 
her for some public sinner, doing penance foi 
her crimes. Yet she never committed one single 
sin, capable of destroying the grace of God in 
her soul. She led so pure and innocent a life, 
that her confessors had often great difficulty in 
finding matter for absolution in those things of 
which she accused herself with so many tears. 

She kept so strict a watch over herself, that 
s^@ was never heard to speak one word louder 
than another, or to find the least fault with the 
conduct or actions of others. There was nothing 
in her behaviour that could give annoyance to 
those with whom charity or duty obliged her to 
converse; on the contrary, her sweet and obli¬ 
ging manners made her so agreeable to every 
one, that it was commonly said, that the name 
of “ Hose,” did not suit her, because she had not 
its thorns. 

Her charity towards mankind was so univer 
sal, that this queen of the virtues seemed to be 
the soul which animated her words, her actions, 
and her whole conduct. This love which she 
had for God and her neighbour filled her whole 
heart, and had so entirely disengaged it from 



ST. ROSE OF LIMi. 


49 


earthly things, that she was insensible to the 
pleasures which most men love so passionately. 
Being asked one day if, in the midst of the de¬ 
lights and consolations which Almighty God in¬ 
fused abundantly into her soul, she did not feel 
her heart attached to worldly things, she con¬ 
fessed that it was impossible for her to think of 
them, or to take the least pleasure in them. By 
this detachment from creatures, she attained to 
a purity of heart, in some degree similar to that 
which the angels possess by the privilege of 
their nature; for during the course of her life, 
which lasted thirty-one years, she never was 
guilty of any venial sin of impurity ; and, what 
is something miraculous, she was never assailed 
with impure thoughts, from which even the most 
cherished and favoured saints of God have not 
been exempt. Eleven learned religious, six of 
the order of Friar Preachers, and five Jesuits, 
who have several times heard her general con¬ 
fessions, have deposed this on their oath. 

After her face had become emaciated, and 
had lost its beauty from the effects of fasting, 
penances, and cold water, which she poured sc 
abundantly over her body, that she nearly ex¬ 
tinguished its natural heat, every one seeing the 
5 



50 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


condition to which her austerities had reduced 
her, held her in greater veneration than ever; 
and she was considered in Lima as a living image 
of the penitential life led by the anchorets, who 
have sanctified the deserts by their great mor¬ 
tifications. As her humility feared nothing so 
much as this universal esteem, and her modesty 
suffered greatly from these applauses, she had 
recourse to prayer to put an end to the cause 
of them; and she obtained by her prayers the 
restoration of the brightness of her eyes, and 
of that brilliant complexion which her austeri¬ 
ties had destroyed, so that she became as fresh 
and beautiful as before; and it happened, one 
Good Friday, as she was returning home from 
the church at noon, with a colour on her cheeks 
that heightened the beauty which Almighty God 
had given back to her, some young libertines 
who saw her pass, surprised to see her looking 
so well, rallied her for it, as if she were return¬ 
ing from some feast, where she had been enjoy¬ 
ing herself, and insolently asked her, if that were 
the manner in which devout people fasted ? yet 
she had fasted all Lent on orange pippins and 
water, and had just spent thirty hours in tears, 
prayers, and groans in the church of S. I)omi- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


51 


nic, without eating or drinking. She was still 
more careful to hide from the eyes of men the 
spiritual graces and favours she received from 
God; and fearing they might be perceived in 
spite of all the precautions she took to keep them 
secret, she earnestly begged Him from her in¬ 
fancy, not to allow the graces He bestowed upon 
her to be known by men; and this having been 
granted by her Divine Spouse, we may easily 
believe that she kept to herself the greatest part 
of the extraordinary things that passed in her 
interior, and that her directors were only made 
acquainted with the least part of the graces she 
received from heaven. 

We cannot be surprised at this, since the 
blessed spirits, taking the part of her modesty, 
assisted her to hide her virtues, which the fol¬ 
lowing example shows. One day when she was 
at church, she remembered having left her dis¬ 
cipline on her table, and as her door did not 
shut, she was seized with great apprehension 
that some one belonging to the house would per¬ 
ceive this dear instrument of penance. In this 
uneasiness she formed a wish within herself, that 
the Blessed Virgin would put it in a certain 
place in her room, which she interiorly pointed 



62 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


out to her Returning home, she did not find 
her discipline where she had left it, but saw, to 
her astonishment, that this sweet and compas¬ 
sionate Queen of Heaven, to satisfy her desire, 
and take away her fear, had shut it up in the 
place which she had thought of. 


CHAPTER Y. 

/ 

HER FASTS, HER DISCIPLINES, AND THE OTHER 
AUSTERITIES WITH WHICH SHE MACERATED HER 
BODY. 

All the graces which Christians receive, be¬ 
ing; derived from the torn and wounded heart of 
the Son of God, inspire them with a love of suf¬ 
ferings, and make them practise austerities so 
frightful, that their innocent excess in the use 
of them can only be excused by the necessity 
which baptism imposes of dying with Him on 
the cross, in order to reign with Him in heaven ; 
for they know that their predestination to eter* 
nal happiness, includes those mortifications 
which are to assimilate them to Jesus Christ 
their Head; for this reason S. Paul considers 




ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


53 


this spirit of penance in Christians as the special 
characteristic of their sanctity, when he says, 
that they that are Christ’s crucify the flesh, with 
its vices and concupiscences. 

This love of the cross was so ardent in the 
soul of S. Rose, that the reader would scarcely 
give credit to that part of her life which treats 
of her fasts and other mortifications, if we could 
not assure him, that all which is related has been 
taken from the juridical informations of the ex¬ 
amination, made by the pope’s express order, 
that he might proceed to her beatification. 

She arrived at an astonishing degree of absti¬ 
nence, by the same means which S. Catherine of 
Sienna employed. From her infancy she ab¬ 
stained from all sorts of fruits, which are deli¬ 
cious in Peru. At six years of age she began 
to fast, three days a week, on bread and water 
At fifteen she made a vow never to eat meat, 
unless she were obliged by those who had autho¬ 
rity over her, and whom she thought she could 
not disobey without sin. When her mother took 
her with her to dine with some ladies of rank, 
who invited them out of devotion, and obliged 
her to eat meat at their table, her obedience 
caused her a pain in the chest, which brought oa 
5 * 



54 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


fern' and other dangerous symptoms. The same 
thing happened when meat was ordered for her 
by physicians : and so far was it from doing her 
any good, that it always made her relapse into 
a more dangerous state. The most expeditious 
method of relieving and curing her on these oc¬ 
casions, w T as to give her a piece of brown bread 
soaked in water; and experience has proved, in 
several instances, that this diet restored her to 
/her original health. Her mother, who only 
looked upon her with the eyes of flesh and blood, 
seeing her face pale and disfigured, blamed her 
conduct, and even wished to persuade her that 
she committed a mortal sin by thus denying 
herself the necessary nourishment for the pre¬ 
servation of life. To prevent her from continu¬ 
ing this manner of living, she obliged her to sit 
at table with the rest of the family; but this en¬ 
lightened daughter contrived to elude her vigi¬ 
lance by begging the servant to offer her only a 
sort of dish made without salt, composed of a 
crust of coarse bread, and a handful of very bit¬ 
ter herbs. This food was so bad and disagree¬ 
able, that she found a voluntary mortification at 
the same table where others sought to gratify 
their appetites. She was accustomed herself to 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


55 


gather wild herbs in the forest, and to cultivate 
them carefully in her garden, that she might 
have the materials for her self-denial always 
ready at hand. 

She hid under the largest tufts of these plants 
a vessel full of sheep’s gall, with which she 
sprinkled her food, and washed her mouth every 
morning. 

One of her favourite repasts, which seemed 
to her the most delicious, as it was the bit¬ 
terest, was to eat the leaves of that creeping 
plant, the granadille, whose flowers represent so 
perfectly the crown of thorns, the nails, the pil¬ 
lar, and the other instruments of the Passion 
of the Son of God, that it is commonly called 
the “ Passion Flower” in Europe; so that we 
can scarcely tell whether eating or abstinence 
was the greatest mortification to her. Her fast 
was so severe and rigorous, that in twenty-four 
hours she took nothing but a piece of bread and 
a little water. Those who have visited America, 
and felt its burning heats, will acknowledge that 
our Saint suffered by these austere fasts a mar¬ 
tyrdom of which we can have no idea ; for the 
extreme heat that prevails in that burning cli¬ 
mate exhausts the strength so much, that it is 



66 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


necessary to eat frequently, as a preservative 
against weakness. 

She had accustomed herself to fast in this 
manner, especially the few last years of her 
life; she observed very exactly the seven months’ 
fast of her order, from the festival of the Exal¬ 
tation of the Holy Cross till Easter. From the 
beginning of Lent, she left off bread, contenting 
herself with a few orange pippins every day of 
^he forty that are consecrated to penance; on 
Fridays she took only five; during the rest of 
the year, she ate so little, that what she took in 
eight days was scarcely sufficient nourishment 
for twenty-four hours. 

She was known to make a moderate sized loaf 
and a pitcher of water last fifty days. Another 
time she remained seven weeks without drinking 
a drop of water or any other liquor; and to¬ 
wards the end of her life she sometimes passed 
several successive days without eating or drink¬ 
ing. She frequently shut herself up on Thurs¬ 
day in her oratory, and remained there till Satur¬ 
day without food or sleep, and so completely 
absorbed in God in a sort of ecstacy, that she 
continued there immovable, and as if incapable 
of rising from the place where she was praying 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


57 


on her knees. She once passed eight entire 
days without any food but the bread of angels, 
which she received in the holy communion; and 
her supernatural abstinence was so well known 
to all the inhabitants of Lima, that they were 
aware that she passed weeks without eating or 
drinking; and that when necessity compelled her 
to drink a little water to assuage the burning 
heat which consumed her, she took it warm, to 
mortify sensuality in the pleasure she might 
have felt from drinking cold water. 

That which seems miraculous in her austerities 
is, that our Saint derived more strength from 
her fasts, than from the nourishment she took; 
for while she deprived herself of natural food, 
she imbibed from the sacred Wound of the ado¬ 
rable heart of Jesus Christ, like S. Catherine of 
Sienna, a delicious nectar, which strengthened 
h§r more efficaciously than the most solid nour¬ 
ishment could have done. 

It w f as no less astonishing that she could find 
room on her emaciated body to engrave in it by 
her disciplines the wounds of the Son of God; and 
that she should have been able to draw r from it 
those streams of bloxl which she every day 
caused to flow; with iron chains and her other 



58 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


instrum ants of penance, she practised such ter 
rible austerities that her confessors were obliged 
to restrict her in the use of them. After she be¬ 
came a nun, she was not content with a common 
9ort of discipline; she made one for herself of 
two iron chains, with which she gave herself such 
blows every night, that her blood sprinkled the 
walls, and made a stream in the middle of the 
room, so prodigious a quantity did she draw 
from her veins. She disciplined herself in this 
manner seven times; first, for her own sins; 
secondly, for souls engaged in sin; thirdly, for 
the pressing necessities of the Church; fourthly, 
when Peru or Lima were threatened with some 
great misfortune; fifthly, for the souls in pur¬ 
gatory ; sixthly, for those in their agony; se¬ 
venthly, in reparation of the outrages offered to 
God. 

The people of Lima having one day misun¬ 
derstood the meaning of the words addressed to 
them by Father Solano, a celebrated Franciscan 
preacher, thought he said that the earth was go¬ 
ing to open and swallow up the town in a few 
days. In consequence of this mistake the whole 
place was thrown into consternation. Pose, 
taking pity on the terrified people, retired to her 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


59 


oratory, and to appease the anger of Gcd, she 
took the discipline so severely, that she was 
nearly dying in consequence. 

As she practised this penance every night, she 
reopened her bleeding wounds by making new 
ones; and being careful to prolong her suffer¬ 
ing, she contrived not to strike always in the 
same place ; but she reiterated her blows so fre¬ 
quently, that she did not allow her wounds time 
to close; scarcely did they begin to heal than 
she opened them again by fresh blows; thus her 
whole body was almost one entire wound. 

Those in the house who heard the sound of the 
blows she inflicted on herself, had a horror of 
this cruel treatment, and were, at the same time, 
touched with pity for this innocent penitent, who 
felt none for herself. Father John of Lauren- 
sana, her confessor, being informed of the man¬ 
ner in which she treated her body, commanded 
her to use moderation ; she obeyed, but she beg¬ 
ged so earnestly, that he could not refuse her 
the permission she asked to take five thousand 
more stripes in the course of three or four days. 
She had shown from her infancy the first sparks 
of that fire which inflamed her soul with the love 
of penance ; for when she was only five years 



60 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


old she carried, through mortification, heavy tile3 
and stumps of trees from one place to another, 
with great difficulty. She entreated Marianne 
the servant, and the dear confidant of her aus¬ 
terities, to load her with heavy stones in the cor¬ 
ner where she usually prayed ; and she heaped 
upon her so great a quantity sometimes, that 
Hose, overcome with the weight of this burden, 
fell fainting and half dead to the ground. When 

she was fourteen, she used to leave her room at 

/ . . 

night when every one in the house had retired 
to rest, and walk about barefooted in the garden, 
carrying a long and heavy cross on her wounded 
shoulders ; the joy which she felt under this be¬ 
loved burden rendering her insensible to the ef¬ 
fects of the air and the season. 

Her confessor having ordered her to use an 
ordinary discipline, and leave off her iron chain, 
she made it into three rows, and wore it round 
her body, and after passing the ends through 
the ring of a padlock, she threw the key into a 
corner, where it would have been very difficult to 
find it. This chain very soon took the skin off, 
and entered so deeply into her flesh that it was 
no longer visible ; and one night she felt so ter¬ 
rible a pain from it that she fainted*, and was 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


61 


near dying. The servant having awoke at a cry 
she uttered, quickly ran tc her assistance. Rose, 
seeing herself obliged to confess the truth, beg¬ 
ged her to help her t&ke off the chain before her 
mother, awakened by the no.se, should come up 
to her room. Marianne found no other means 
than by breaking the padlock; but they could 
not do this, and she was obliged to go down to 
the garden for a stone to break it. While she 
was gone, Rose, fearing her mother would sur¬ 
prise them, had recourse to prayer, which served 
as a key to open the lock; for Marianne, enter¬ 
ing with her stone, saw the padlock open of it¬ 
self, and separate from the links of the chains; 
thus they succeeded in taking it off, though not 
without causing great pain and an abundant ef¬ 
fusion of blood. Her wounds were no sooner 
healed than she put the chain on again; but as 
soon as it had entered into her flesh, her con¬ 
fessor ordered her to send it to him; and in obey¬ 
ing him she suffered the same pain and loss of 
blood as before. After her death, Mary of Usa 
tegni kept some links of this bloody chain, which 
exhaled so sweet an odour that every one who 
smelt it was obliged to confess it to be super¬ 
natural. 


6 



62 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


She bound her arms from the shoulder to the, 
elbow with thick cords, which caused her great 
pain by compressing tightly the muscle of this 
fleshy part. In order to suffer more she rubbed 
herself with nettles, making her body one entiro 
blister, and with thorns, which, entering deeply 
into the flesh, drew forth quantities of blood. 
She used two hair shirts. The first, being only 
two feet long, did not satisfy her desire of suf¬ 
fering ; nevertheless, she used it till she obtained 
Another, woven of horse-hair wdth two sleeves, 
and which hung from her shoulders to her knees. 
She appeared yet more glorious in the eyes of 
God when wearing this strange coat of arms, 
from having armed it underneath with a great 
quantity of points of needles, to increase her 
excessive sufferings by this ingenious cruelty. 
She wore this frightful hair shirt several years 
with incredible joy, and she only quitted it by 
the express order of her confessor, when a vo¬ 
miting came on. 

As she was insatiable of pain, seeing her hair 
shirt taken from her, she chose a sack of the 
coarsest stuff she could find, and made it neatly 
in the form of a shift. It would be impossible tc 
express the suffering this rough dress caused 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


63 


her; sometimes it made the perspiration stream 
from her in great drops; sometimes she fell 
fainting under it, and was unable to take a step 
without great torture. These austerities were 
insufficient to satisfy her thirst for suffering: 
she watched also for the hour in which cooking 
was going on in the house, and, when no one 
could see her, she exposed the soles of her feet 
to the heat at the mouth of the oven, where it 
is the greatest, that no part of her body might 
be without a wound, and she kept them there 
till the pain of her half-roasted feet quite over¬ 
came her. 

This was the treatment our Saint inflicted on 
her innocent body, though her frequent attacks 
of illness gave her plenty of occasions of suffer¬ 
ing. She would have practised yet greater and 
more cruel mortifications if her confessors had 
not prevented her. What astonishes us in her 
conduct is, that she suspended the interior joy 
with which Almighty God favoured her in her 
greatest sufferings, for fear that this spiritual 
sweetness might extend to her body, and that by 
making it participate in the delight of her soul, 
her insupportable sufferings would be softened. 
We may therefore say, that her pains were un- 



64 


ST. ROCE OF LIMA. 


mixed with any consolation; they resembled, in 
a manner till then unknown, those suffered by 
the Son of God in His Passion, during which He 
never permitted the superior part of His soul, 
which was sovereignly happy, to communicate 
any part of its happiness to His afflicted body. 
We consider this divorce of the flesh and the 
spirit in our Saint, as one of the great wonders 
that have made her the admiration of the Peru¬ 
vian people. When charity induced some pious 
persons to exhort her to moderate her austeri¬ 
ties, she answered, “ As I cannot do any good, 
is it not just that I should suffer whatever I am 
capable of enduring ?” 


CHAPTER VI. 

OF THE SHARP-POINTED CROWN WHICH SHE WORE 
ON HER HEAD, AND OF THE HARDNESS OF HER 
BED. 

The Saints being predestinated to resemble 
the Son of God in His state of sacrifice and im¬ 
molation on the cross, according to S. Paul, who 
makes their greatness consist in this conformity. 





ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


65 


“ whom He predestinated to be made conform¬ 
able to the image of Ilia Son,” every one will 
allow that a crown of thorns on the head of the 
blessed Rose was necessary to render her a per¬ 
fect image of Jesus crucified, and that the por¬ 
trait would not have been faithful had it not 
represented the bloody thorns which crowned 
the head of her Divine Spouse, and which were 
the dearest object of her thoughts. 

To copy it in reality, when very young she 
made herself a crown of pewter, studded with 
little sharp-pointed nails; she put it generously 
on her head without fearing the pain it would 
inevitably cause her. She wore it several years, 
but only as a preparation for a more cruel one, 
in which she fixed ninety-nine iron points ; she 
wore this during the ten last years of her life; 
and it furnished her with another occasion of 
exercising her love and her patience; for con¬ 
sidering the crown of thorns of Jesus Christ on 
the head of S. Catherine of Sienna, she thought 
she might obtain the same favour. In this ar¬ 
dent desire of suffering, she made herself a cir¬ 
clet of a plate of silver three fingers broad, in 
which she fixed three rows of sharp points, in 
honour of the thirty-three years that the Son of 



66 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


God lived upon earth. Fearing that her hair, 
which was beginning to grow, would prevent 
these points from entering in, she cut it all off, 
excepting a handful which she left on her fore¬ 
head, to hide this penitential crown from the 
eves of men. She wore it underneath her veil, 
which made it the more painful, as these points, 
being unequally long, did not all pierce at the 
same time, but one after another, according to 
lier different movements; so that with the least 
agitation these iron thorns tore her flesh, and 
pierced her head in ninety-nine places, with ex¬ 
cessive pain; and a& the muscles of this part 
are connected with one another, our Saint could 
scarcely speak; and "when she coughed or 
sneezed, this violent effort caused the three rows 
of points to penetrate even to the skull with al¬ 
most inconceivable pain. 

As she had only invented this sort of torment 
to imitate the sufferings of the Son of God, she 
would have willingly changed this circlet for a 
crown of thorns, to imitate Him more closely; 
but her confessor thought it better for her not 
to change it, for fear that the holes which the 
thorns would make might suppurate. She fol¬ 
io? ed Lis advice, seeing that it would be very 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


67 


difficult to conceal a crown of thorns, as the 
points would come through her veil, and reveal 
what she so much wished to hide; for this rea¬ 
son she made this silver crown, in which she fixed 
the points so firmly, that after her death the 
goldsmith could not draw even one out with his 
instruments. 

To increase the pain, she changed every day 
the place of this crown, causing new wounds, or 
reopening those which were beginning to heal. 
She had put strings at each end of this painful 
diadem, that by tying them closely, she might 
force the points in more deeply; and in chang¬ 
ing it, which she did every day, this crown caused 
her new pain. Every Friday, which she particu¬ 
larly consecrated to penance, she tied this circlet 
more tightly, and made it come down upon her 
forehead till it pierced the cartilage of her ears 
in. many places. Her mother and the rest of the 
family did not perceive this crown for a long 
time, nor her endeavours to hide it from their 
view; but one day, when she was trying to save 
one of her brothers from the anger of her father, 
who was correcting him with too much passion, 
in pushing her away he placed his hand, by 
chance, on the sharp crown that encircled her 



68 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


head; and, as he was carried away by passion, 
his touch was so rough, that it caused three 
streams of blood to flow from his wounds; and 
this made known to her mother and all of them 
the great austerities which she secretly prac¬ 
tised. 

Rose, more afflicted at the discovery than at 
the pain of the blow, went quickly to her room, 
took off her crown, cleaned it, and after having 
hashed her wounds and stopped the blood, she 
put on her veil as before. Her mother, having 
followed her, commanded her to take it off; she 
then saw her head pierced all round by the iron 
points; and though she felt as much horror as 
pity, she pretended not to see them, fearing that 
if she took from her this instrument of penance, 
she would only invent a more cruel one. 

She did not fail to complain of it to her con¬ 
fessor, who desired Rose to send to him, without 
delay, the pointed circlet which she wore round 
her head. She took it to him, but when he saw 
this crown stained with blood, and bristling with 
points, he was greatly surprised; and consider¬ 
ing her delicate constitution, her age, and her fre¬ 
quent illnesses, he tried to persuade her to leave 
it off Rose, seeing that he used remonstrance 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


69 


more than authority, represented to him so for¬ 
cibly the necessity she felt of suffering this con¬ 
tinual martyrdom, in order to be conformable to 
her Divine Spouse, that he gave it back to her, 
after having blunted some of the sharpest points. 
This compassion did not, however, prevent her 
suffering the same pain as before, for the rest of 
the nails pierced her head when she struck the 
crown, or tied it with the strings. Every time 
that the devil tempted her, she pressed this 
crown three times on her head with her finger, 
in honour of the most holy Trinity, and this 
mortification made her always victorious over 
his attacks. After her death a great servant of 
God, kissing respectfully this instrument of pe¬ 
nance, felt himself interiorly inflamed with the 
love of God, and was at the same time perfumed 
with a heavenly odour, which was a sign to him 
that Almighty God had accepted this new sort 
of torture, which the blessed Rose had invented 
to mortify her&elf. 

This faithful spouse of the Son of God had so 
perfectly imitated, during her life-time, her sera¬ 
phic mistress in the pain of this thorny diadem, 
that after she was dead, as there were no flowers 
to be found to make her a crown, which is cus- 



70 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


tomary in Peru at the burial of young girls, as a 
sign of the glory they reap from their virginity 
in the tomb, they took, by divine inspiration, the 
crown of thorns from the head of a statue of S. 
Catherine of Sienna, to place it on that of the 
blessed Rose; as if that seraphic lover wished to 
lend her crown to Rose to honour her triumph, 
and to conduct her, in a more glorious manner, 
to the throne of the Divinity. Several persons 
of known sanctity, saw her enter heaven, with a 
palm in her hand, and a crown resplendent with 
light on her head, which our Blessed Lady had 
placed there, to acknowledge by this favour the 
service she had rendered her. 

But let us return to the austerities and suffer¬ 
ings of our Saint, which merited for her tho 
glory of this triumph. From her infancy she 
invented many means of making her bed hard, 
and her mother, having perceived it, made her 
sleep with her; but Rose contrived to mortify 
herself in her obedience ; for as Soon as her mo¬ 
ther was asleep, she drew on one side the feather 
bed on which she had been lying, and slipped 
quietly on the bedstead, placing a large stone 
under her head for a pillow. She practised this 
mortification till her mother, after telling her 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


71 


that this rigour was displeasing to her, and that 
she was obstinate, at last said she might seek a 
bed somewhere else, and sleep as she liked. 

Rose, quite delighted with this permission, 
made herself a bed in the form of a chest, of 
rough wood, and put in it a quantity of small 
stones of different sizes, that her body might 
suffer more, and might mot enjoy the repose a 
smoother bed would have afforded it. This bed 
still seeming too soft, she put in three pieces of 
twisted and knotted wood, and she added seven 
more, filling up the spaces with three hundred 
pieces of broken tiles, placed so as to wound her 
body. This was the luxurious couch on which 
this insatiable lover of the cross took the rest 
necessary to recruit her exhausted strength. She 
always kept behind her pillow a bottle full of 
gall, with which she rubbed her eyes before go¬ 
ing to bed, and washed her mouth in the morn¬ 
ing, in memory of that which was given to Jesus 
Christ her Spouse on the cross. When Almighty 
God called her to this sort of crucified life, she 
had only a piece of coarse cloth doubled for a 
pillow; soon after, not finding this hard enough, 
she used bricks; but all this not being sufficient 
v o satisfy her ardour for suffering, she took a 



72 


ST. ROSE OE LIMA. 


rough stone for her pillow. Her mother becom¬ 
ing aware of it, from the bruises which this stone 
inflicted on her face, forbade her ever to use it 
again, and insisted on her having a bolster, like 
the rest of the family ; she certainly obeyed, but 
in filling it with wool, as was mentioned at the 
commencement of this history, she put also vine 
branches, and bits of broken rushes, in the place 
where she laid her head, and by this invention 
she rendered her pillow as hard and painful as 
it was before. 

She slept for fifteen years on this rough bed, 
if it would not be more correct to call it, a cross; 
she suffered such dreadful pain, that though she 
was very generous, and met, with intrepid cour¬ 
age, every sort of pain, still she never placed her¬ 
self upon it without trembling and shuddering, 
and the blood seemed to freeze in her veins, so 
violent was the emotion which the inferior part 
manifested at the sight of the pain it was obliged 
to endure. On these occasions, when she was 
half dead, Jesus Christ several times appeared 
to her, with a sweet and gracious countenance, 
saying to her, to rouse her courage, “Remem¬ 
ber, my child, that the bed of the cross on which 
I died for the love of thee, was harder, narrower. 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


73 


and more painful than that on which thou art 
laying; think of the gall which I drank for thy 
sake, and call to mind the nails which pierced 
My hands and feet; thou wilt then feel conso¬ 
lation in the terrible pains thou sufferest on thy 
bed.” 

She was not wanting in resolution in these 
frightful austerities; but as this vigour did not 
extend to her body, she became so weak that her 
confessors ordered her to use more moderation, 
and take away at least those broken tiles, which 
gave her the most pain; but she begged so 
earnestly, that she was allowed to replace them, 
and to sleep upon them during the last two Lents 
she passed in this life. For some time before 
her death she passed the night in a corner of the 
room, where she was almost frozen with cold 
The implacable hatred which she felt towards her 
body, taught her to refuse it every comfort; for 
this reason she always worked standing, and 
when she could not continue so any longer, she 
made use of a very narrow piece of wood for a 
Beat. 

When near death she lost nothing of her de¬ 
sire to lie on a hard bed; she sought no other 
tortures than the excessive pain she endured 
7 


74 


ST. HOSE' OF LIMA. 


thereon; and as they would not place her on the 
ground, as she desired, she obtained at last, by 
prayers and tears, that two crossed sticks should 
be placed under her head and shoulders, that 
she might expire on this cross, as Jesus Christ, 
her Divine Spouse, had died upon His. Some 
persons of piety who saw her die, perceived on 
her countenance that of the Son of God, with 
the same appearance as He had when dying on 
Calvary. Blessed Raymond of Capua had for¬ 
merly observed the same in visiting S. Catherine 
of Sienna, when she was ill. 

The insupportable hardness of her bed shows 
that she watched most part of the night, as it 
prevented her from sleeping. She confined her¬ 
self to two hours’ sleep, and often did not spend 
the whole of them in sleep: she so disposed of 
the remaining time that she passed twelve hours 
in a perpetual application of her mind to God 
by prayer, and the others she spent in needle¬ 
work or other employments, to relieve the po¬ 
verty of her parents. 

Though her fasts, her hair shirt, the hardness 
of her bed, her almost continual meditations, 
and other austerities, had given her a great fa¬ 
cility in watching, the devil did not fail to use 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


75 


many artifices to provoke sleep; but Bhe knew 
how to discover him; and to overcome his efforts 
she struck her head roughly against the wall, 
gave herself hard blows, and sometimes she fixed 
her hands to the arms of a large cross which was 
in her room, and thus her body hung suspended 
in the air; and if, in spite of all these efforts, 
she still felt overcome with sleep, she fastened 
the small quantity of hair she had left on her 
head to hide her crown of thorns, to a large nail 
fixed in the wall, and thus she triumphed over 
the temptation. 


CHAPTER VII. 

OF HER SOLITUDE, AND THE HERMITAGE WHICH 
SHE HAD BUILT IN HER FATHER’S GARDEN, THAT 
SHE MIGHT LIVE QUITE SEPARATED FROM MEN. 

Solitude is a sort of paradise to souls that 
aspire to virtue, either because being there solely 
occupied with the perfections of God, they are 
raised above the condition of mortals and become 
quite divine, or on account of the graces which 
Almighty God then pours out upon them more 





7t> 


ST. EOSE OF LIMA 


abundantly, and the familiarity with himself t-6 
which He raises them. As His Spirit is incom¬ 
patible with that of the world, He is only pleased 
with solitude, and He reserves His caresses for 
;hose who separate themselves from the world to 
enjoy the sweetness of His conversation. Thus, 
speaking of a soul who wishes to keep a close 
union with Him, He says that he will draw her 
into solitude, where, being disengaged from crea¬ 
tures, He will speak to her heart; that is, He wil* 
converse familiarly with her, to show her the 
path she must follow to attain heaven. 

The blessed Rose, while yet a child, felt her 
self so forcibly drawn to solitude, that she sought 
the most secret corners of the house, and de¬ 
prived herself of all those little amusements with 
which children of her age usually divert them¬ 
selves, to attend solely to God, and not to inter¬ 
rupt the incredible pleasure she began to feel in 
her sweet communications with Him. This de¬ 
sire of being hidden from the eyes of men in 
order to converse more familiarly with her be¬ 
loved Spouse, increasing with her age, she made 
a little hut in her father’s garden with palm 
leaves and other branches of trees, and she wove 
them so carefully, that the sun had great diffi- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


77 


eulty in penetrating. She remained there nearly 
all day; so that it was generally said in the 
house, “ If you wish to find Rose, you must look 
for her in the garden ; that is her bed-room, her 
table, and her oratory; she never leaves it.” 
When she was older, she could not suffer a 
greater torment than to be drawn from her re¬ 
treat to converse with creatures. She did all she 
could, by prayers and tears, to prevail upon her 
mother to allow her some part of the house, 
where she would not be seen, and no longer to 
oblige her to go with her to the town. Though 
her mother did indulge her in some degree, she 
still required her, in spite of her repugnance, to 
go with her sometimes to pay her visits. One 
day when she had been ordered to dress smartly 
on this account, she pulled out of the oven, as 
she passed, a large stone, which fell so heavily 
on her foot, that she was obliged to remain at 
home; for the wound, of which she had been 
herself the cause, made her walk lame, and gave 
her great pain. 

One reason which contributed greatly to give 
her an aversion for company was, that the fame 
of her sanctity being spread over the whole 
town, she was spoken of in her presence as a 



78 


ST. KOSE OF LIMA. 


person of great sanctity and close union with 
God: and these praises gave her the more pain, 
as she was fully persuaded of her misery and un- 
worthiness. This made her resolve to choose 
another state of life, to be delivered from this 
slavery, and to be no longer obliged to follow 
the fashions and maxims of the world. Fore¬ 
seeing the difficulties which her mother would 
oppose to this design, and believing that she 
should never obtain her consent without a spe¬ 
cial interposition of Providence, she had re¬ 
course to the Blessed Virgin, her ordinary re¬ 
fuge in her necessities, and earnestly entreated 
her to dispose the mind of her mother to consent 
to her desire of embracing a more retired life, 
and to allow her to make profession of a life of 
devotion, that she might be dispensed from the 
customs of the world, which she could not en¬ 
dure. In order to obtain this favour, which she 
so passionately desired, she begged the father 
sacristan to put on the neck of the statue of our 
Lady of the Rosary, a chaplet of coral which 
she kept in her box, assuring him that he would 
do her a great kindness, as it was of great con¬ 
sequence to her to gain the favour of the Blessed 
Virgin, that the Divine Infant^whom she held in 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


79 

hei arms might become her security for a grace 
which she fervently solicited from Him. Though 
these words were an enigma to the good father, 
he promised to present her rosary; but as the 
ladder was not there, he thought no more about 
it, till Rose, noticing his omission, repeated her 
petition. He then immediately sent for a lad¬ 
der, and in presence of those who were in the 
chapel, he put the rosary on the image of the 
Blessed Virgin. 

Some days after, the chaplet was seen in the 
divine hands of the Infant Jesus, as if it had been 
taken from the mother, expressly to give it to 
the Son. This prodigy very much surprised 
those who frequented the church, particularly 
the father sacristan, who declared that no one 
had made the exchange, and that it must have 
been an effect of the power of Almighty God. 
Rose herself interpreted it in her favour, and 
saw it with great delight, knowing by this sign 
that our Blessed Lady had obtained the favour 
.she had asked, and that Jesus Christ her Divine 
Son, held this rosary, in order to answer for His 
blessed mother, and to show her that He had 
taken upon Himself the execution of her pious 
design. 



80 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


With this confidence she requested her mo¬ 
ther, through the Rev. Father John of Lauren- 
zana, Don Gonzalez and his wife, Mary of Usa- 
tegni, to allow her a little room apart, into 
which no one of the family, or from out of doors 
might enter to speak to her, or visit her, except 
her confessor, to whom she Was obliged to give 
an account of her proceedings from time to time. 
Her mother, who till then had been inflexible to 
ker tears and entreaties, gave her leave to do as 
she pleased, in consideration of those who mado 
the request. This consent being obtained, she 
had a little hermitage built in the garden, five 
feet long and four wide. One of her confessors 
found it too narrow; but she answered, plea¬ 
santly, that it was large enough for her and for 
Jesus Christ, her adorable Spouse. 

Some da^s after she had shut herself up there, 
a holy woman, who had frequent ecstacies saw, in 
a rapture, the blessed Rose like a brilliant star, 
the rays of which not being confined to the limits 
of this small cell, pierced through the walls on 
every side, to spread themselves over the town 
of Lima. She remained buried in this hermitage 
as a person dead to the world, always occupied 
either in prayer or penance, or in some work. 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


81 


and so absorbed in God, that living more to Him 
than to herself, she did not know whether her 
soul were separated from her body, or still ani¬ 
mated it in its operations. 

The fame of her virtue induced the first ladies 
of the town to visit her, to enjoy the sweetness 
of her conversation, and to profit by her example. 
As she could not forbid them the house, and as 
they were careful to request her mother’s assist¬ 
ance, who enabled them to see her, and who 
took them to her retreat, Rose received them, 
though against her will, deploring the time she 
thought she lost in these civilities; and though 
they only spoke of Almighty God, our Saint said 
that it was much more agreeable and profitable 
to her to speak with God, than to speak of God. 

This retired life made her much talked about, 
especially when she was not seen to come so of¬ 
ten to church as before; for this is customary 
with devout persons, whose good example in¬ 
spires piety, and often attracts to God persons 
who are much engaged with the world by their 
business or rank in life. One person being 
scandalized at this excessive solitude, asked her 
why she no longer went to mass every day ? 
Rose answered, that not being able to leave the 



82 


ST. ROSE OF LIM.k. 


house without her mother, who was iletained at 
home by the cares of her household, Jesus Christ 
supplied for it in a miraculous manner, favour¬ 
ing her so far, that while she still remained in 
her hermitage, she heard every mass that was 
said in the Hospital of the Holy Ghost, and even 
those celebrated in the church of S. Augustine, 
which was four or five streets distant from her 
house. In fact, it was remarked several times, 
that our Saint had this gift from God, of assist¬ 
ing in spirit at all the sermons that were preached 
in the churches of Lima, and of giving as exact 
an account of them as if she had been actually 
present. 

Her body being so obedient to the laws of her 
mind, and her mind so perfectly submissive to the 
will of God, we need not be surprised that irra¬ 
tional animals should have respected her virtue, 
and given her proofs of their obedience. The 
dampness of the earth, and the foliage of the 
trees which surrounded the hermitage of this 
happy solitary, drew thither an almost innumer¬ 
able quantity of musquitos, which are little trou¬ 
blesome flies, with which America is filled and 
which we call gnats; and although these little 
insects love the shade, and always seek it, par- 



ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


83 


ticularly at noon, when the heat of the sun is 
almost insupportable, and at night to be shel¬ 
tered from the cold; still not one of this legion 
of flies, which covered the walls, the windows, 
and the doors of her cell, presumed to settle upon 
her; they showed so much respect for her person, 
that they seemed to honour in her the sovereign 
power of God who had created them. They did 
not show the same deference to her mother, nor 
to the persons who came to see her in her re¬ 
treat by the permission of her spiritual guides; 
for they were severely stung. Three years be¬ 
fore her death she retired to the house of Don 
Gonzalez de laMassa, in obedience to her parents, 
who were anxious to allow him this favour, which 
he had earnestly solicited; and here she caused 
to be built for her a room as small as that which 
she had occupied at home, in which she passed 
her whole time, both day and night, in prayer, 
except when she returned, as she did from time 
to time, to her first hermitage, to avoid the inter¬ 
course of creatures, and to enjoy the company 
of Almighty God in that solitude. 



84 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

JESUS CHRIST ESPOUSES THE BLESSED ROSE, IN THE 
PRESENCE OF THE EVER BLESSED VIRGIN. 

Love always tends to union, and the greater 
the love the closer is the alliance to -which it as¬ 
pires ; and as there is not a closer union than 
that which joins a man and woman in marriage, 
Almighty God makes use of this expression tc 
assist us to comprehend the union -which lie 
contracts with just souls by grace and charity. 
Thus He assures the faithful soul, that He will 
espouse her; that is, that He will raise her to 
the honour of an alliance with Him, and will 
give her a share in His heart, and in His ca¬ 
resses. It is true that sanctifying grace pro¬ 
cures this advantage for all the just in an invisi¬ 
ble and hidden manner; but as there are souls 
singularly favoured and caressed by God, and 
with whom He is more closely connected, He 
sometimes also espouses them in a visible man¬ 
ner, with a ceremonial of pomp and magnifi¬ 
cence. The blessed Rose had read in the life 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


85 


of S Catherine of Sienna, her dear distress, 
that Jesus Christ had raised this seraphic lover 
to so great a degree of glory and favour, that 
He espoused her solemnly in the presence of the 
Blessed Virgin, S. Dominic, and of several other 
Saints. Though the love she bore to the same 
Divine Saviour made her sigh after the enjoy¬ 
ment of a similar grace, the consciousness of her 
own misery and nothingness kept her in such 
profound humility, that she would have thought 
it a crime to harbour the thought, or to form a 
single desire of it; and this very humility, which 
made her judge herself unworthy of it, was the 
precious portion which captivated the heart of 
the Son of God, and induced Him to honour her 
in a similar manner. 

He disposed her for this divine alliance by 
miracles; for the mysterious black and white 
butterfly, of which we have already spoken, after 
having long fluttered on the left side of her, at 
last settled exactly over her heart, and did not 
move till it had traced the resemblance of a 
heart on the dress of our Saint. At this mo¬ 
ment she seemed to hear an interior voice, say¬ 
ing, with great sweetness, “ Bose, my beloved, 
give Me thy heart,” as if Jesus Christ wished 
8 



86 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


her to understand by this enigmatical represen 
tation, that He would give her His heart in ex* 
change for hers, and renew in her person the 
miracle He had formerly performed in favour of 
S. Catherine of Sienna, when he took away her 
heart, in order to put His own in its place. 

One night when the blessed Rose was ab¬ 
sorbed in contemplation, Jesus Christ appeared 
' to her as a most beautiful man, and told her with 
a smiling countenance, that she was an object of 
His love; and after this delightful assurance, 
He showed her an almost innumerable troop of 
virgins, resplendent with brightness, who were 
occupied in sawing and cutting marble, and He 
invited her to join the number of these chaste 
spouses, whom she saw employed in this hard 
labour. She began to consider in her mind this 
scene, which ravished her with admiration, and 
at the same instant she saw herself covered with 
a mantle woven of gold and precious stones, and 
she Was placed in the company of these happy 
virgins. 

It is painful to make known to carnal men, 
who comprehend not the wonders of God, and 
who are scandalized at the ineffable condescen* 
si on which He shows to souls if flamed with His 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


87 


love, the present with which He honoured the 
blessed Rose, to invite her to the dignity of be¬ 
ing His spouse. On Palm Sunday, a day on 
which the church celebrates the solemn and tri¬ 
umphant entrance of the Son of God into the 
city of Jerusalem amidst the acclamations of the 
people, the sacristan, who distributed palms to 
the other sisters of her order who were in the 
church, passed her without giving her one, either 
through inadvertence, or by the special permis¬ 
sion of God. Rose thought this must have hap¬ 
pened through her fault, and that she must have 
been distracted during the distribution. Af¬ 
flicted and confounded, she retired into the cha¬ 
pel of our Lady of the Rosary, where, placing 
herself on her knees, she began to sigh and weep, 
to expiate her fault. 

While she was soliciting by her tears the par¬ 
don of the negligence she thought she had com¬ 
mitted, she saw that the Blessed Virgin had a 
smiling countenance; and that, after having 
looked upon her graciously, she turned to speak 
to her Son, and, as if she had received from Him 
a favourable answer to her request, she turned 
her eyes again towards the blessed Rose, as if 
to congratulate with her on the happiness to 



88 


SI. ROSE OF LIMA. 


which she was going to be raised. Our Saint, 
transported with a secret joy, which she did not 
usually feel, raised her eyes to look at the Son 
of God, who, looking at her again, caused a tor¬ 
rent of delight to flow into the soul of this chaste 
lover, and said to her these tender and loving 
words : “Rose of My heart, I take thee for My 
spouse.” 

Quite enraptured with the honour of this illus¬ 
trious alliance, she prostrated herself humbly at 
the feet of Jesus Christ, and entering into the 
abyss of her miseries, she said to Him with pro¬ 
found respect, “ Lord, behold thy handmaid ; I 
am too much honoured by the quality of Thy 
slave; and I bear in my soul the indelible marks 
of a necessary slavery, which renders me unwor¬ 
thy of the glorious rank of Thy spouse.” 

The consideration of her own nothingness 
would have made her take this heavenly favour 
for an illusion, had not the Blessed Virgin as¬ 
sured her of the truth of this mystery by these 
gracious words : “ Rose, the beloved of my Son, 
see to what an excess of glory He has raised 
thee; by His mercy thou art now truly His 
spouse.” As her humility, however, made her 
still apprehend some delusion in this grace, of 



ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


89 


which she judged herself very unworthy, Jesus 
Christ, to give her confidence, graciously con¬ 
firmed to her the truth of the alliance he had 
contracted with her in the presence of His holy 
mother. Who could express the supernatural 
gifts of grace which she received from her Divine 
Spouse in consequence of this august union ? 
We can only know what she herself made known 
to a learned man who directed her. When he 
urged her one day to declare to him what gift 
her Heavenly Spouse had bestowed on her as 
the pledge of His love and their alliance, she 
confessed that she was not possessed of elo¬ 
quence sufficient to express the magnificent libe 
rality which God had exercised in her regard 
without considering her unworthiness. 

That she might always have a sensible mark 
of this illustrious alliance before her eyes, she 
begged her brother to have a ring made for her; 
he took the measure for it, and though he knew 
nothing o*f this mystery, he told his sister that 
he would have engraved upon it, “ Rose of My 
heart, I take thee for My spouse.” This con¬ 
soled her very much ; for she saw that Almighty 
God had inspired him to choose these words. 
On Maunday Thursday she begged the sacristan 
8 * 



90 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


to put this precious pledge of the love of Jesus 
Christ into that part of the tabernacle in which 
the most Adorable Sacrament is inclosed; but 
on Easter Sunday she was much surprised to 
see this ring on her finger, though she had not 
asked for it back, and the religious whom she 
had asked to inclose it had not returned it to her. 
She knew at once by this miracle that her Di¬ 
vine Spouse had communicated to thD metal the 
prcfperty of returning to her finger, only to show 
her His ardent desire of being intimately united 
to her heart; and that as He had become every¬ 
thing to her by this alliance, she should make 
Him the sole object of her thoughts and affec¬ 
tions. This miracle was very evident; for her 
mother who was beside her in the church, and 
who closely watched her, saw this ring on her 
finger without having seen any one approach to 
place it there. 

A year after our Saint’s death, a great ser¬ 
vant of God, holding this ring in his hand, was 
sweetly ravished into an ecstacy; and amongst 
the ineffable consolations which Almighty God 
poured abundantly into his soul, he perceived 
this faithful spouse of Jesus Christ very high in 
glory, and hon durably placed among the greatest 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


91 


saints in heaven. Quite enraptured with joy at 
this delightful spectacle, he wished to extend his 
hand to retain it, but he was not able : the ring 
seemed to have benumbed his arm. If this nuptial 
ring worked so great a wonder on this servant 
of God, who can conceive the power with which 
it acted on the soul of this chaste spouse ? 


CHAPTER IX. 

OF THE CLOSE UNION WITH GOD TO WHICH SHE 
ATTAINED BY MEANS OF MENTAL PRAYER. 

The Holy Spirit having chosen the blessed 
Rose as His Temple, because Himself her Mas¬ 
ter, and taught her how to pray from her earliest 
infancy. The supernatural lights with which He 
enriched her understanding, inflamed her heart 
with so ardent a love for this holy exercise, that 
even sleep itself, which, by the necessity of na¬ 
ture she was compelled to take, could not dis¬ 
tract her from it; for her imagination was so 
completely absorbed in it, that she was often 
heard to repeat while asleep, the same number 
of vocal prayers as she had said during the day. 




92 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


Her piety increasing with her years, she applied 
herself wholly to God from her twelfth year by 
the prayer of union, by means of which “the 
soul becomes one spirit with Him,” according to 
the words of S. Paul. She had two different 
methods of conversing with God; one in soli¬ 
tude, when, having disengaged her mind from 
the care of earthly things, she retired to her 
hermitage, or to some other place apart from 
creatures, to attend solely and uninterruptedly 
to God; the other in any place or in any em¬ 
ployment that occupied her; for she kept her 
mind so united to God, and recollected in Him, 
that she prayed in working or in exercising cha¬ 
rity towards the afflicted: thus, whether she 
walked, worked, or whatever she did, she was 
always in prayer. 

She employed every day twelve hours in the 
first kind of prayer, as we have already men¬ 
tioned ; the second was continual, unless she 
was interrupted by the representations of hor¬ 
rible phantoms, of which w T e shall speak in the 
next chapter; so that she prayed without inter¬ 
ruption, according to the advice of the great 
Apostle, for whether she slept or watched, whe¬ 
ther she conversed, ate, read spiritual books, 




ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


93 


went abroad, or remained in her cell, God 
was incessantly in her thoughts, and she enter¬ 
tained herself with Him in loving colloquies. 
It is beyond the power of our imagination to 
conceive how, though the presence of God en¬ 
tirely engrossed all the interior powers of her 
soul, she still acted in exterior things with great 
presence of mind, giving the proper answers to 
questions, and finishing the work she com¬ 
menced. Even if she were engaged in house¬ 
hold employments, the cares which would have 
very much embarrassed another, did not divert 
her from the presence of her Spouse, nor from 
the continual conversation she kept up with Him 
in her heart, in which He communicated to her 
His choicest favours. 

In the time of prayer her senses were so re¬ 
collected, that they represented nothing to her 
imagination which could distract her from her 
intercourse with God; when in the church she 
fixed her eyes stedfastly on the altar, and never 
looked at anything else; she w T as so absorbed in 
attention to the Divine mysteries, that she never 
knew who passed before her; and it was often 
remarked, that on certain occasions which in- 
* spired others with fear or surprise, she did not 



94 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


move a muscle, remaining motionless as a rock, 
while others in the church were quite terrified. 
After having passed hours, the whole day, and 
often all the night in prayer, she was often found 
in the position in which she had first placed her¬ 
self. Towards the end of her life she remained 
in prayer in her hermitage from Maunday 
Thursday till Easter Sunday, her mind being so 
united to God, and so completely disengaged 
from the senses, that her body lost all strength, , 
and she could neither rise nor support herself. 

She meditated every day three hours on the 
benefits of God, and the innumerable graces she 
bad received from his mercy. She had for some 
time applied herself to a very sublime kind of 
prayer, which was, to meditate on a hundred and 
fifty perfections of God; after having drawn 
from it many holy affections which enkindled in 
her heart the flames of Divine love, she honoured 
each of those attributes separately with an ado¬ 
ration of latria. Her mind was agitated with 
many different sensations during this prayer, as 
it formed affections conformable to the effects 
which we attribute to the sovereign perfections 
of God; fear, hope, grief, confusion, joy, desires, 
and compassion, had a share in her sentiments, 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


05 


when she contemplated His justice, His mercy. 
His omnipotence, His wisdom, and the other at¬ 
tributes which occupied her thoughts; and she 
felt two different sorts of agitation, similar to 
the two contrary pulsations which physicians 
recognise in our hearts, which succeed one an¬ 
other ; now the consideration of the avenging 
justice of God plunged her into the depths; 
soon after a reflection on his mercy elevated her 
to heaven. This method of prayer was not only 
very agreeable to God, but our Saint testified 
that it was also terrible to the devils. Her love 
of God, -which continually increased by the con¬ 
sideration of His Divine attributes, made her 
words like burning coals, which lighted up the 
same fire in the hearts of those with whom she 
conversed; for she was careful to make use of 
everything to lead them to love virtue and hate 
vice. If she walked with them in a garden, she 
spoke to them of the sovereign beauty of God, 
which spreads itself over flowers as a mirror, in 
which men may see the faint representation of 
that Source of beauty from which they derive 
their colour and brightness. She made use of 
this means with no less advantage herself to 
raise her heart to God, adoring Him in all sub- 




96 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


lunar y tilings, which she considered as animated 
pictures, representing to her His excellences 
and perfections. It usually happened that 
everything she saw or heard elevated her mind 
above her senses, even so as to threw her into a 
rapture. One day when she was ill, and some¬ 
thing was being prepared for her to eat, a little 
bird came and perched near the window of her 
room, and began to sing; whereupon our Saint 
applied herself so earnestly to the consideration 
of the goodness of God, who had given this bird 
so sweet a note to sing His praises, that she was 
ravished into an ecstasy, in which she continued 
transported with love from nine in the morning 
till evening. 

The year of her death, another bird, whose 
melody was most charming, placed itself oppo¬ 
site her room during the whole of Lent: as soon 
as the sun began to go down, the blessed Rose 
ordered him to employ his notes in praising 
God; he obeyed, and raising his voice, sang with 
all his strength, till this spouse of Christ, un¬ 
willing to be outdone by a bird in offering to 
God canticles of praise and benediction, which 
was more her duty than his, began to sing 
hymns to His glory, which she did very sweetly; 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


97 


when she had finished, this little chorister began 
again, and thus together they composed a choir 
in which they sang, alternately, for an hour, the 
praises of God. At six o’clock she dismissed 
him till the next day, and he was so punctual 
that he never failed to appear at the time fixed. 

The abundant graces which she received from 
God in mental prayer, made her exhort every 
one to embrace the practice of it. She spent 
several hours every day in reading books which 
taught the method of meditation, and in particu¬ 
lar the w T orks of Father Lewis of Granada. She 
had wonderful el-oquence in persuading others 
to it; she begged confessors to exhort their 
penitents and preachers to speak of the excel¬ 
lence of meditation, and of its necessity for all 
who wish to lead a life corresponding with their 
dignity as Christians, and with the obligation 
of saving their souls. The Rosary of the Blessed 
Virgin, comprising these two sorts of prayer, 
mental and vocal, in the words and mysteries 
which compose it, she wished all who mounted 
the pulpit to instruct the people, and exhort 
them to embrace this devotion, and to say at 
least a part of it every day. Her zeal and exam¬ 
ple induced many persons to practise it. 

9 



98 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


CHAPTER X. 

SHE IS TORMENTED WITH INTERIOR PaINS, TO SO 
FRIGHTFUL A DEGREE THAT SHE IS EXAMINED 
BY SOME DIVINES, WHO DECLARE HER STATE TO 
BE FROM GOD. 

The life of this Saint verifies perfectly that 
oracle of the Holy Ghost, that God tries those 
sou 7 |s whom He predestines to glory, and that 
the greatest favours He lavishes upon them in 
this life, are the preludes to those interior 
crosses which He prepares in order to purify 
them. 

The blessed Rose having attained to a very 
close and perpetual union with God, began to be 
attacked every day at certain intervals with 
such frightful darkness and obscurity, that she 
was often a whole hour without being able to 
distinguish whether she were in hell with the 
condemned, or in purgatory with the souls who 
there satisfy the justice of God. In this horri¬ 
ble darkness she had no thought of God, no idea 
of His mercies, and to fill up her chalice of bit¬ 
terness, she had in her mind a confused remem- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


99 


brance of the love she had had for Him. As 
during this reflection she found herself in a very 
different condition from that former happy state, 
she imagined that she no longer knew God, and 
that she was reduced to the dreadful state of , 
never being able to love Him. While these 
clouds of darkness obscured her mind, she 
thought she considered Almighty God as a 
stranger, an unknown person, in a word, as 
something as far from her thoughts and ideas, 
as if she had never had any union or friendship 
with Him. 

In this species of desolation she seemed to see 
before her eyes an impassable wall which hin¬ 
dered her from escaping from this labyrinth, 
which made her believe that her condition dif¬ 
fered in nothing from the pain of loss which the 
damned suffer in the privation of the beatific 
vision. As death is the termination of misfor 
tunes to the miserable, she tried to soften the 
rigour of the terrible pains she suffered by the 
hope of dying soon ; but instantly reflecting that 
her soul was immortal, and that death, which is 
so great a relief to others, would not be the end 
of her sorrows, this thought raised fears which 
would have been capable of throwing her into 



100 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


despair, if that same Providence of God which 
permitted these desolations, had not preserved 
her from it. 

This darkness and trouble of mind tormented 
tier for fifteen years, at least an hour and a half 
every day; her efforts to banish them from her 
mind only made them more importunate; and 
this afflicted Rose found sharp thorns within her¬ 
self, which lacerated her soul, from the belief 
she |felt that she was abandoned by God. 

In fine, the evil spirits filled her imagination 
with frightful spectres, and troubled her mind 
by such fearful visions, that though this coura¬ 
geous virgin could calmly bear the most insup¬ 
portable pain, still she never could accustom 
herself to this sort of trial, the bare thought of 
which was so terrible to her, that when she felt 
the hour of her sufferings drawing near, sho 
threw herself on the ground, at the feet of Jesus 
Christ, and, bathed in tears, she earnestly be¬ 
sought Him not to oblige her to drink this cha¬ 
lice of horror and bitterness, offering herself to 
the most cruel sort of death, which she would 
infinitely prefer, to the ceasing to love Him one 
moment; because God being to her what the 
soul is to the body, she thought herself deprived 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


101 


every day cf that supernatural and divine life 
during these storms : knowing, however, that it 
was by the will of God she suffered these pains, 
she adored it with respect, and said to Him, with 
a mind resigned to the orders of His Providence, 
“ Lord, may thy will be done, not mine; I aban¬ 
don myself to Thy Divine dispensations.” These 
anxieties, this darkness, and this species of de¬ 
solation, exercised the judgment of the most fa¬ 
mous theologians of Lima, and there were very 
few who gave a decided opinion ; some believed 
that she was deluded, or that what passed in her 
mind was the effect of her long watchings; 
others, that they were illusions of the devil, 
which disturbed her imagination; others again 
attributed them to the heavy vapours which her 
great abstinence caused to mount from her sto¬ 
mach to her brain. 

She listened to them humbly, and modestly 
said, that the little knowledge they had of her 
state was the effect of her stupidity, which could 
not explain how these things passed in her in¬ 
terior. She did not fail to attempt sometimes, 
in order to obey them, to give them some idea 
of her pains by comparisons ; but when she had 
compared them to fire, "which seemed most pro- 
9 * 



102 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


perly to express their violence, she frankly con¬ 
fessed that there was no relation between what 
she suffered in her soul, and the pain which the 
activity of that element causes. 

When she spoke of her desolations, she said 
that she seemed to see herself very remote from 
God by a great dissimilarity, that she felt over¬ 
come by her timidity, and in these sorrowful 
moments she imagined herself overwhelmed by 
the iempest, of which the royal prophet speaks, 
which these sad thoughts raised in her soul; she 
added, that during this darkness, she wished to 
become anathema, that is, separated from Jesus 
Christ her God and her Spouse; she said, in fine, 
that these representations afflicted her to that 
degree, that they would have each day caused 
her death, if God had not preserved her life by 
a continual miracle. She was not the only soul 
whom Almighty God has tried in this terrible 
manner: we read the same thing of S. Catherine 
of Sienna ; and the history of the blessed Henry 
Suso, religious of the Order of Friar Preachers, 
relates that the Son of God often appeared to 
him under the form of a judge, with an inflamed 
countenance, and eyes sparkling with anger, 
pronouncing, with a voice of thunder, these over- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


103 


whelming words : “ Go, ye cursed, into everlast¬ 
ing flames.” 

Being asked if, after being thus separated from 
God, and suffering this eclipse of the Divine Sun 
in her soul, she did not receive from Him some 
consolation; she answered, that God entered 
again into her mind with so brilliant a light, and 
enkindled so great a love in her will, that it be¬ 
came inflamed with ardour; after which she re¬ 
entered the bosom of God, and was therein so 
perfectly transformed into her Beloved, that she 
seemed to be closely united with Him, and so 
confirmed in His grace, that not all the tempta¬ 
tions of the flesh, the devils, or men, could ever 
separate her from His love. 

Though God had revealed to her, and had 
clearly shown her that she was in the sure way 
of salvation and perfection, still, as she was very 
humble, she never refused to appear before those 
who wished to examine her vocation and manner 
of life. Besides her confessor, who studied her 
for a long time, many persons celebrated for 
their learning and piety, as well of the Order of 
Friar Preachers, as of the Society of Jesus, and 
even the famous Doctor John of Castile, a man 
very well versed in the mystical life, and who 



104 


ST. ROSE CF LIMA. 


composed an excellent treatise upon it, have 
carefully examined all that passsd in her inte¬ 
rior, and after having conferred together several 
times on her life, and the extraordinary things 
which happened to her, they have remarked, 
First, that from her infancy she experienced ar¬ 
dent desires of loving God alone, and so power¬ 
ful an attraction to prayer, that she found no¬ 
thing sweeter than to entertain herself with God 
by Sprayer, and to raise her mind incessantly to 
the contemplation of heavenly things. Secondly, 
that till the age of twelve years she had pursued 
different methods in prayer, which had all raised 
her to a high degree of spirituality. Thirdly, 
that her whole life was a continual exercise of 
patience under the crosses she had suffered in 
every way, and from the delicacy of her body, 
her abstinence, her want of sleep, and her sick¬ 
nesses. Fourthly, that she had attained so per¬ 
fect a union with God, that' she could not turn 
her thoughts from Him, even if she had wished 
to apply them to something else; hence, she 
was never diverted from Him by her exterior 
occupations, nor by the violence of her illness, 
which caused her excessive pain. They remarked 
that Almighty God was so present to her in all 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


105 


the faculties of her soul, and excited in her so 
sweet a hope of being favoured with His graces, 
that it was quite impossible for her to find any 
pleasure on earth, except in the continual idea 
she had of His mercies. 

Being asked if she had ever read books treat¬ 
ing of mystical theology; she answered humbly, 
that she was not aware that there were any bear¬ 
ing this title, or which taught the method of 
prayer which conducts to the unitive life. When 
she was asked what efforts she had made to re¬ 
sist her evil inclinations, she answered, that, by 
the grace of God, she did not remember to have 
ever found any opposition in her soul to virtue; 
that, on the contrary, she had felt from her in¬ 
fancy a strong inclination to piety, which had 
made her joyously embrace its practice. “ I do 
not mean,” she said, “ that I have not perceived 
in myself involuntary movements; but as soon 
as I applied my mind to the presence of God, 
they vanished so promptly that I had not usually 
time to resist them.” They wished further to 
know if she did not find some trifling satisfac¬ 
tion in earthly things, when her mind became a 
little relaxed from its violent application to God 
in prayer; she said that she could not possibly 



106 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


take the least pleasure in them, an! that she 
suffered inconceivable pain when her mind was 
a moment unoccupied with God. 

These divines, after several conferences, con¬ 
cluded that her life was the work of God; that 
she suffered, in some degree, the torments which 
the souls in purgatory endure by these represen¬ 
tations, which oppressed her with fear, and threw 
her jinto a sort of agony; and that God permit* 
ted , 1 by a dispensation of His Providence, that 
she should be tormented with these apprehen¬ 
sions of hell, and that her understanding should 
be obscured by this darkness, in order to keep 
her humble, and to purify her love more and 
more by these trials. 

These doctors having commanded her in vir¬ 
tue of obedience, to explain to them the state in 
which she was after this dryness and terrible 
desolation, she blushed at this order; fear and 
modesty showed evidently, by the colour that 
rose to her face, the pain she felt in declaring 
secrets which had God alone for witness; she 
obeyed, but with so much confusion that her 
voice faltered as she declared, that after this 
storm Jesus Christ appeared visibly to her, now 
as a child, again as of thirty years of age; that 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA, 


10T 


the Blessed Virgin came usually to conscle her, 
with so amiable a countenance, that her looks 
spread consolation over her interior. 

She added, that these frequent visions worked 
in her three good effects. First, an abundance 
of joy, which made her insensible to all the plea¬ 
sures of the world. Secondly, a love and an at¬ 
tachment to God, which separated her entirely 
from creatures. Thirdly, so admirable a tran¬ 
quillity of the passions, that she knew nothing on 
earth capable of disturbing their peace; whence 
they conjectured that she was in a sure way of 
great perfection. Some other theologians, from 
the account they had heard of the profound 
manner in which she spoke of the inscrutable 
mystery of the Trinity of the Divine Persons, of 
the hypostatical union of the Word with the hu¬ 
man nature, of the Book of Life, predestination, 
nature, and grace, and other mysteries of faith, 
had the curiosity to converse with her on these 
sublime subjects; after a long conference with 
her, they confessed that they had never known 
a more enlightened soul, and that our Saint had 
not attained the knowledge of these mysteries 
by the vivacity of her mind, nor by her applica¬ 
tion to study; but that God had given her the 




108 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


understanding of them by an infused knowledge, 
and that she was only the organ of the Holy 
Ghost when she spake of these elevated truths 
of religion. 

One thing which surprised the most expe¬ 
rienced in the mystical life was, that she had at¬ 
tained the unitive life with very little exercise 
of the laborious practices of the purgative; and 
thejy remarked with astonishment a sort of com¬ 
bat between God and her, without being able to 
determine whether God was more occupied in 
seeking in the secrets of His wisdom the means 
of exercising her by suffering, than she w T as dis¬ 
posed to suffer them for His love; for she showed 
an incredible avidity for crosses, and an invinci¬ 
ble patience, which rendered her victorious over 
her trials, and over every affliction which Al¬ 
mighty God sent to exercise her love and fidelity. 
Hence the most learned and the greatest mas¬ 
ters in a spiritual life, who had assembled to 
examine her, made known publicly that she was 
governed by the Spirit of God, and that she 
acted by the impulse of grace in her conduct. 

Louisa of Melgarcyo, a lady of known sanc¬ 
tity, was so persuaded of this, that every time 
she met the blessed Rose she threw herself on 



SI. ROSE OF LIMA. 


109 


her kneea before her, notwithstanding the re* 
sistance her modesty made to prevent her; and 
when Our Saint had passed on, this virtuous wo¬ 
man noticed where her feet had trod in walking, 
and kissed the traces with respect and vene¬ 
ration. 


CHAPTER XI. 

OF THE FAMILIAR MANNER IN WHICH JESUS CHRIST, 
THE BLESSED VIRGIN, S. CATHERINE OF SIENNA, 
AND HER GUARDIAN ANGEL CONVERSED WITH 
HER; AND OF THE VICTORIES WHICH SHE GAINED 
OVER THE DEVILS WHO TEMPTED HER. 

If we separate familiarity from love, we de¬ 
prive it of its delight and sweetness: and when 
Aristotle judged that there could be no friend¬ 
ship between God and men, it was because he 
considered the familiar communications which 
are inseparable from it, derogatory to the pro¬ 
found respect which they owe to the Divinity, 
and dangerous on account of the liberty which 
they might allow themselves, and which would ' 
be capable of drawing down His hatred and 

10 




110 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


aversion; and because this philosopher never 
knew the tenderness of God towards men, nor 
the mystery of the incarnation, by which He has 
made Himself like them. The Christian religion, 
more enlightened in its sentiments, recognizes a 
perfect friendship between God and the just 
man by grace, and believes that God does not 
only honour by familiarity those souls who love 
H’|tn tenderly, but that he bestows on them fa¬ 
vours which we may call a delicious foretaste 
of the happiness prepared for them in Heaven. 
The lives of the Saints are full of examples, and 
that of our Saint furnishes us with authentic 
proofs of it. 

The Son of God did not only appear visibly 
to the blessed Rose at the time when her trials 
left her, He frequently visited her when she was 
reading her spiritual books, working, or em¬ 
broidering, under the form of a beautiful In¬ 
fant, stretching out its little arms to caress her, 
and testify the excess of Its love. Rose was so 
accustomed to these visions, that when her Di¬ 
vine Spouse was one moment later than usual in 
appeajing, she made tender complaints to Him; 
and as love inspires the soul with poetry, she 
composed eleg'es to express the pain His delay 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


Ill 


caused her. B ung once indisposed with a very 
bad sore throat, Jesus Christ visited her more 
frequently than usual, and treated her with in¬ 
conceivable marks of goodness; and as our Saint 
thought she could not have a more favourable 
opportunity for soliciting relief from her con¬ 
tinual suflering, He granted what she asked, 
on condition that He should ask something of 
her. Bose having agreed, and promised to exe¬ 
cute faithfully whatever obedience should re¬ 
quire from her, He told her that He wished her 
to return to her former state of suffering: she 
consented, provided He would increase her 
pains, which was the condition of her promise. 
When she was one day relating these favours 
with great innocence and candour to her mother, 
to console her grief in seeing her always ill, she 
S4W rays dart from the face of her daughter, 
which so heightened her beauty, that she seemed 
to her an angel from heaven, and no longer a 
creature subject to so many infirmities. 

One night when she was taking her rest in the 
oratory which was built i& the garden, a great 
faintness came over her; and feeling a great want 
of some cordial drink to strengthen her, Jesus 
Christ applied the Wound of His sacred side t? 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


m 


her mouth, and this chaste lover imbibed from 
it a delicious nectar, as S. Catharine of Sienna 
had formerly done; so that after receiving this 
extraordinary favour, S. Rose was no longer 
merely the spiritual daughter of this seraphic 
lover; she became her foster-sister, having drunk 
from the same source from which she derived her 
ardour and love. 



B^ing at the house of a lady of quality, after 


conversation on heavenly things, Rose 


left the lady to go and say her prayers ; during 
her prayer a little girl, of seven years old, saw 
the Infant Jesus with her, in a human form, 
dressed in a variously coloured garment, caress¬ 
ing her in a thousand ways, which this child re¬ 
lated. In the house of the lady Isabel Mexia, 
the Infant Jesus ^vas seen walking familiarly 
with our Saint, speaking to her, and following 
her everywhere: those who witnessed these in¬ 
nocent familiarities, saw a dazzling light stream 
from the pavement on which the blessed Rose 
walked during their conversation. As this in- 
comparable Spouse gave Himself wholly to her, 
He wished to be the sole possessor of her heart 
and its affections ; and one day He made known 
to her that b) was jealous of a flower which she 



ST. RCSE OP LIMA. 


113 


?ras fond of. When she was walking one day 
in her garden, in which she cultivated very beau¬ 
tiful flowers, she saw that a quantity had been 
gathered. Not knowing who had done her this 
injury, she complained of it to her Spouse, but 
was much surprised that, instead of consoling 
her, He made her this loving reproof: “ Why 
art thou attached to flowers which the sun causes 
to fade ? Am I not, the Flower of the fields, in¬ 
finitely more precious than all those which thou 
raisest in thy garden with so much care ? Thou 
art a flower, and thou lovest flowers ! 0 Rose ! 
give Me thy love; know that it is I who pulled 
them, that thou mayest no longer give any crea¬ 
ture a share in that heart which belongs to Me.” 

The Blessed Virgin frequently honoured her 
with the same caresses and familiarity. This is 
very evident when we mention that this Queen 
of Angels took upon herself the care of awaking 
her. The continual application of her mind to 
God, and her extraordinary austerities, had so 
heated her blood, that she had almost lost the 
use of sleep. Her confessors desired ’her for 
some time to use every day, lettuce, endive, and 
poppy seeds, to recover it; but as these reme¬ 
dies only procured a very small portion of ne- 
10 * 


114 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


cessary repose, she found herself so overcome 
with drowsiness at her usual hour of rising, that 
she had the greatest difficulty in waking. In 
this necessity she had recourse to the Blessed 
Virgin, whom the church calls the “ Morning 
Star,” and earnestly entreated her to have the 
goodness to wake her at the appointed hour. Our 
Lady had the goodness to grant her this favour; 
sh(/ appeared to her every morning, and, after 
awaking her, she animated her to rise by these 
tender words: “ Rose, my child, arise; it is time 
to prepare yourself for prayer.” She was once 
so overcome with drowsiness that she fell asleep 
after having been awakened: the blessed Virgin 
came again, and touching her gently, said, 
“Arise, Rose, and do not be slothful.” "When 
the Blessed Virgin had given her this little re¬ 
proof, she went away differently from her usual 
manner of retiring, for she always allowed Rose 
to see her face till she left the room; and this 
time she turned her back towards her, in punish¬ 
ment of her idleness. 

From the time that Almighty God appointed 
S. Catherine of Sienna to be her mistress, Rose 
had such frequent conversations with her, that 
the features of this seraphic virgin seemed to 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


115 


have been transferred to her countenance, as it 
happened to Moses, who was completely trans¬ 
formed by God after he had spoken with Him 
on the mountain; for she resembled her so per¬ 
fectly, that she passed in the opinion of all the 
people for a second S. Catherine of Sienna. 

She lived also in most familiar intercourse 
with her guardian angel; for when Jesus Christ, 
her dear Spouse, was a moment later than usual 
in visiting her at the ordinary time, she sent 
her guardian angel to seek Him. 

She felt one night when in her hermitage the 
threatenings of a fainting fit, or some similar 
attack, and immediately returned to the house, 
for fear of being taken ill in that retired place, 
where no one could help her. Her mother, see¬ 
ing her much changed, and the perspiration on 
her forehead, thought she was going to die; she 
told the servant to run to the nearest confec¬ 
tioner’s to buy some chocolate, which at Lima is 
commonly composed of cocoa, lemons, and su¬ 
gar, to strengthen her; but our Saint begged 
her mother not to buy it, assuring her that she 
should not have long to wait for it. Her mother 
grew angry, and told the servant a second time 
to go immediately to the place she had named. 




116 


ST. /tOSE OF LIMA. 


Rose, seeing her eagerness, told her to (tail her 
back, and not to trouble herself, for some would 
be brought to her immediately frf m the house of 
the Receiver. Scarcely had she finished speak¬ 
ing when a servant entered the house, and 
brought her a large silver cup, full of chocolate, 
from his Master. Her mother, greatly surprised 
at so i seasonable an assistance, ordered her, in 
virtufe of her authority, to tell her how she knew 
that this remedy would be brought to her. Rose 
smiled, and confessed that as her good angel 
always did what she asked him, she had sent him 
to the Receiver’s wife to tell her of her illness, 
and of her want of a little chocolate to restore 
her strength. 

Her mother opened the garden gate every 
night before she went to bed, that her daughter 
might go to her room when she returned at mid¬ 
night from her hermitage. She forgot it once; 
and when Rose was preparing to return she saw 
from the window a white shadow fluttering, and 
apparently inviting her to follow it. She thought 
at once that it was her guardian angel concealed 
under this form: she followed, and when they 
arrived together at the closed door, it opened 
of itself the instant the shadow touched it. 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA 


117 


She was not only familiar with the holy angel 
that Almighty God had appointed as her own 
protector, but with those of others also, as she 
made known to one of her friends, a religious 
man, who having a long journey to take, came 
to recommend himself to her good prayers. He 
was fortunate at first; but when he had reached 
the vast plains of Truxillo, which is a fine town 
near the sea, he underwent great fatigue, and 
was twice in danger of losing his life. On his re¬ 
turn to Lima he complained to the blessed Hose, 
that she had not helped him in his perils, as he 
had asked her before he left. She answered, that 
these misfortunes happened by his own fault, as 
he was not then in the same state as when he 
came to say farewell to her. She then charitably 
mentioned to him some things which she could 
only have known through her guardian angel. 

If the angels loved and respected her, the de¬ 
vils on the other hand, had so great an aversion 
for her that there was nothing they did not at¬ 
tempt in order to make her feel the effects of their 
hatred and fury. The devil attacked her once 
in her cell in the form of a giant; he tried for a 
long time to bite her; but being prevented by 
the power of Gcd from tearing her in pieces, he 



118 


ST. ROSE OF UMA. 


seized her and dragged her furiously on the 
ground, till this chaste virgin entreated the pro¬ 
tection of her Divine Spouse by these words of 
the royal prophet, “ Lord, do not abandon to the 
tyrannical fury of these hellish monsters those 
who hope in thee.” Then the enemy immedi¬ 
ately fled. Nothing occurs more frequently in 
the history of her life than the insults she re¬ 
ceived from the evil spirit. He appeared to her 
one day, and when she showed no fear of his 
malice, he gave her a severe blow on the cheek. 
Another time he threw a great stone upon her 
from above, which struck her, fainting, to the 
ground. One night when she was praying at- 
home in a corner, she saw the devil in a large 
basket, making a horrible noise, to divert her 
from her application to God. She blew out the 
candle, and fortifying herself with the sign of 
the cross, she courageously challenged him to 
the combat; he accepted the offer, and changing 
his form in a moment, he appeared in the shape 
of a prodigious giant. He took hold of her by 
the shoulders, and shook her as if he would tear 
her in pieces. She did not lose courage, and 
though her bones were almost broken, and her 
nerves relaxed by these rough shocks, she laughed 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


119 


at him, and reproached him with his weakness, 
that, appearing so strong, he could not even tri¬ 
umph over her firmness. 

It was observed that she was very often en¬ 
gaged in combat with the enemies of her salva¬ 
tion ; and that whenever she was obliged to de¬ 
fend herself from their temptations, she was so 
intrepid that she never seemed to fear them, 
though they assumed horrible shapes, capable 
of freezing the blood in the veins of the boldest 
and most courageous persons: on the contrary, 
the more frightful they appeared, the more 
courageously did she attack them. She was 
once, however, obliged to change her method of 
defence, and gain the victory by flight on the 
following occasion:—The devil appeared to her 
one day in her garden, under the form of a beau¬ 
tiful young man. At the sight of this danger¬ 
ous enemy she retired without waiting or speak¬ 
ing to him, and by this flight she gained a com 
plete and glorious victory; for taking a thick 
iron chain which she found, she gave herself a 
severe discipline ; and then, covered with blood, 
6he complained to her dear Spouse that He had 
abandoned her on this occasion. Jesus Christ 
appeared to her immediately, surrounded with 


\ 



120 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


brightness, and consoling her, said, 4 Rose, thou 
art deceived if thou imaginest that I left thee 
alone in this extremity. Know that thou hast 
only avoided this danger by My grace, and that 
if I had not been with thee in this dangerous 
occasion, thou wouldst not have triumphed over 
the devil, who wished to surprise thee.” This 
incident in the life of our Saint is very similar 
to wjiat happened to S. Catherine of Sienna on 
one occasion. As Rose was no less cherished 
and favoured by God, He communicated to her, 
as well as to this seraphic lover, the gift of dis¬ 
cernment, to distinguish the true revelations of 
God from the deceitful illusions of the spirit of 
darkness. God had bestowed this grace on her 
from her early youth, and from that time she 
prescribed infallible rules for the discernment of 
spirits, which she drew from the effects produced 
in souls by them. Jesus Christ had Himself 
taught them to S. Catherine of Sienna, and this 
Saint to blessed Rose, who became so experi- 
' enced, that if any one in Peru had held Plato’s 
opinions regarding the metemsychosis of souls, 
he would have believed that the soul of S. Cathe¬ 
rine of Sienna had passed into the body of Rose, 
her spiritual daughter and fervent disciple. 



ST HOSE OF LIMA, 


121 


CHAPTER XII. 

OF HER INVINCIBLE PATIENCE UNDER PERSECUTION, 

IN SICKNESS, AND IN HER OTHER SUFFERINGS. 

As thorns spring forth with roses, so grief and 
pain seem to have been born with the blessed 
Rose; for her life was a tissue of sufferings, sick¬ 
ness, pains, and crosses, which exercised her pa¬ 
tience from her cradle to her tomb, by a long 
and tedious martyrdom. When Rose was only 
nine months old her mother lost her milk, and as 
she could not afford to pay for a nurse for her, 
she brought her up with a little broth instead 
ol milk. Though the sweet child suffered greatly 
from this privation, and from the violence used 
in forcing open her mouth that she might take 
this nourishment, she never cried; on the con¬ 
trary, she seemed to derive pleasure from it. We 
have spoken before of the wonderful patience 
she exhibited at the age of three months, under 
the painful operation of extracting the roots of 
her nail with pincers, when she did not shed a 
tear, but appeared as unmoved as if she were in¬ 
sensible to pain, 


11 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


122 


Scarcely had she begun to walk, when she saw 
herself the subject of a dispute between her mo¬ 
ther and godmother, each wishing to call her by 
the name they had given her. Her mother 
would have her called Rose, and her godmother 
could not endure the idea of giving her any other 
name but that of Isabel, which she had received 
r /n baptism. Whatever this blessed child did was 
sure to offend one or the other. If she answered 
to the name of Isabel, her mother punished her 
severely; and when she wished to correct this 
innocent error by acknowledging the name of 
Rose, her godmother, who was also her aunt, 
treated her with the same rigour. 

As she was of a mild disposition, quite oppo¬ 
site to the passionate temper of her mother, it 
would be difficult to enumerate all the harsh 
treatment she received from her during several 
years. Her mother found fault with every thing 
she did; she condemned her reserve, she blamed 
her fasts, she did not like her taking up so much 
rime in prayer, nor her retired life, so opposite 
to the maxims of the world; for these reasons 
she often scolded her, and went so far as to use 
a thousand abusive epithets, as if she had been 
ar infani ous person. At the least provocation 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


123 


she gave her blows on the cheek; but when she 
was carried away by anger, she put no bounds to 
her ill usage; she was not content with abusing 
her, striking her on the face, and kicking her; 
she took a thick knotty stick and struck her with 
it with all her strength. She began to treat her 
thus when she cut off her hair, after having con¬ 
secrated her virginity to God, and she continued 
the same treatment on many other occasions. 

Those with whom she lived were actuated to¬ 
wards her by so extraordinary a spirit of envy 
and vexation, because they saw her lead a life 
so different from theirs, that they did every 
thing they could to disoblige her; they even 
threatened to report her to the Inquisition as a 
deluded girl and as a hypocrite, who deceived 
the world by a false appearance of virtue. 

Rose blessed God under these persecutions ; 
she suffered them with joy, as she had read in 
the life of her seraphic mistress that she also had 
attained a very close union with Jesus Christ by 
means of sufferings. When a lady of quality 
asked her why she did not beg S. Catherine of 
Sienna to free her from these persecutions, for it 
was commonly said in Lima, that she obtained 
from Gcd, by the intercession of this Saint, 



24 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


whatever she asked for herself or others, she an¬ 
swered, “ What would this dear mistress s-ay to 
me, if I were to do so ? would she not have rea¬ 
son to reproach me with choosing a different path 
from hers ? ah ! may Gcd preserve me from this 
cowardice!” In fact, our Saint esteemed the 
sufferings of S. Catherine of Sienna more highly 
than her consolations ; and she preferred the 
stigmas with which the Son of God honoured 
her to all the sweets of His caresses, because 
she thought it a shameful thing for a Spouse of 
Jesus Christ crucified to be a moment without 
a cross. 

She desired suffering with a sort of eagerness, 
and when Divine Providence sent her sickness 
to furnish her with an occasion of it, she felt 
much more compassion for the trouble she gave 
others who waited upon her, than pity for her¬ 
self, which made her often say, “ Oh, how ad¬ 
vantageous and agreeable it would be to be al¬ 
ways ill and to suffer great pains, if we did not 
give so much trouble to those who attend upon 
us!” Almighty God who inspired her with this 
great desire of sufferings, furnished her with 
many occasions for practising patience : she was 
scarcely ever o v .e moment without suffering ex- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


12 L 


Ct>ssive pain, and when she had nothing to afflict 
her exteriorly, Almighty God sent her interior 
pains. When those with whom she lived relaxed 
their unjust persecutions a little, sickness came 
upon her in all sorts of shapes. She was three 
years in bed a paralytic, suffering great torture, 
without shedding a tear, or making the least 
complaint. These diseases arose from different 
causes, which all united in her body to give her 
an increase of suffering. Even the physicians 
were surprised to see her suffer so long, some¬ 
times from tertian, sometimes from quartan fe¬ 
vers, which made her burn with heat and then 
shiver with cold ; for her body was so attenuated 
and dried up, that there seemed to be scarcely 
anything remaining to nourish fever. 

She on her part adored the Hand of God in 
her infirmities, acknowledging that they did not 
proceed m her from a derangement of the nys- 
tem, as is the case with others, but from the pai- 
ticular dispensation of her Divine Spouse, who 
sent them to exercise her patience and to fur¬ 
nish her with opportunities of merit and grace. 
She declared to one of her most familiar friends, 
that she did not think there was a member of 
her body that had not suffered all it was capable 
11 * 



126 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


of enduring. Her patience was invincible in 
these continual sufferings, and though her pains 
sometimes rose to the highest degree of torture, 
she never showed a single movement of impa¬ 
tience, nor uttered a word of repugnance to fol¬ 
low the will of God by this path of the cross ; on 
^the contrary, she always shewed an entire resig¬ 
nation and a respectful disposition to suffer every 
thing she had to bear. 

It is almost impossible to enumerate her dif¬ 
ferent afflictions; for we think there are very 
few which she did not experience in the greatest 
degree. First, she suffered long from a quinsey; 
secondly, she was subject to asthma, which im¬ 
peded her respiration ; thirdly, she felt for seve¬ 
ral years the severe pains of sciatica, which tor¬ 
mented her day and night; fourthly, she was 
several times in danger from pleurisy; fifthly, 
she frequently fell into convulsions caused by the 
pain she suffered in the membrane which sur¬ 
rounds the heart, and from the heat of her inside, 
which sent vapours to her brain; sixthly, she 
was scarcely ever free from fever; seventhly, we 
must confess that she stood in need of all her 
patience to bear the pain of gout in her hand* 
and feet; and though this affliction is generally 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


127 


the effect and the punishment of intemperance, 
this chaste virgin was cruelly tormented by it, 
although her whole life had been spent in fasting 
and severe penitential exercises. 

In all these severe pains, which succeeded one 
another, and whitfh made the blessed Rose a 
daughter of affliction, she made known to those 
whom she saw touched with compassion for her 
sufferings, that she was still too well; that Al¬ 
mighty God treated her with too much tender¬ 
ness ; and that if He were to increase her pains 
to an infinite degree He would do her no injus¬ 
tice, for she had deserved more. In the extre¬ 
mity of her sufferings she turned lovingly to¬ 
wards her crucifix, from which she derived her 
strength and patience, and addressed her Divine 
Redeemer in these tender and affectionate words: 
“ Oh my Jesus! oh, my Jesus! increase my suf¬ 
ferings, but increase also Thy Divine love in my 
soul!” We may conjecture from a vision which 
she had one day, that the Son of God heard the 
ardent prayers of this chaste Spouse. He ap¬ 
peared to her on two very brilliant rainbows, 
holding a pair of golden scales, in which He 
weighed on one side the sufferings mankind 
0 )uld endurt and on the other the graces and 



128 


ST. ROSE OF LxMA. 


infinite rewards which He promises; she neard 
Him immediately extol with magnificent praises 
the constancy of those who suffer generously for 
His love, and declare aloud that there was no 
other means of mounting to heaven but by the 
ladder of the cross. 

This vision inflamed her heart with so great a 
^esire of suffering all things for His Divine love, 
that she was on the point of going to publish to 
all men the inestimable advantages of affliction, 
and the great grace which God bestows when¬ 
ever He sends sickness, losses, or any other 
visitation; for these apparent evils acquire for 
those who bear them an infinity of merits, which 
dispose them for the possession of sovereign 
happiness. The blessed Rose drew new strength 
from this vision, which encouraged her under 
the paralytic seizure which Almighty God sent 
to crown her patience, and which caused her to 
die a sort of martyr in the flower of her ige. 



ST. ^ ROSE OF LIMA. 


129 


CHAPTER XIII. 

OF HER LOVE FOR HER DIVINE SPOUSE JESUS 
CHRIST, AND OF THE MIRACLE WHICH SHE EN¬ 
TREATED HIM TO WORK TO INFLAME THE HEARTS 
OF MEN WITH HIS DIVINE LOVE. 

As charity makes saints, Almighty God, who 
destined S. Rose to attain to a high degree of 
sanctity, rendered her heart, as it were, another 
Etna, which sent forth night and day flames of 
love, and which was so completely filled with this 
celestial fire, that heat and sparks from it were 
visible on her countenance during her prayer. 
Eire was frequently seen issuing from her mouth 
and eyes, and through them she was enabled to 
give vent to the flames with which she was con¬ 
sumed while conversing with God by prayer. The 
ardent sighs which she continually breathed, 
manifested this evidently, for she was obliged to 
allow them to escape her, in order to moderate 
the violent heat of the love which burnt in her 
heart. 

This ardent charity pervaded so completely 
all the faculties of her soul, that nothing issued 



180 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


from her heart, her mouth, or eyes, that lid not 
express this celestial ardour. She had almost 
continually these words in her mouth: “ Oh my 
God ! who would not love Thee? Oh good Jesus! 
when shall I begin to love Thee as I am obliged ? 
How far am I from this perfect, intimate, and 
generous love ? Alas ! I know not even how to 
love thee. How shameful! What advantage is 
\t to have a heart, unless it be quite consumed 
■with the love of Thee !” Inflamed with this di¬ 
vine charity, she composed several ejaculatory 
prayers to obtain this perfect love of God, which 
are so moving that they may produce in the 
hearts of those who read them the same effects 
as in the heart of our Saint. The following is 
an example: 

“ Lord Jesus Christ, God and Man, my Crea¬ 
tor and my Saviour, I am extremely sorry and 
sensibly grieved for having offended Thee, be¬ 
cause Thou art what Thou art, and because I 
love Thee above all things. My God, who art 
tne Spouse of my soul, and all the joy of my 
heart, I desire, but I desire it with all the powers 
of my soul, to love Thee with a very perfect love, 
with a very efficacious love, with a very sincere 
ineffable love, the greatest that a creature can 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


131 


have for her God, with an incomprehensible love, 
with a love resolute and invincible in difficulties; 
in a word, I desire to love Thee as the saints 
<ind angels love Thee in heaven. Even more, 0 
God of my heart, of my life, and all the joy of 
my soul, I desire to love Thee; as far as I am 
capable of it, as much as the Blessed Virgin, 
Thy Mother and my sweet Lady, loves Thee. 
Oh, Salvation of my soul! I desire to love Thee 
/as Thou lovest Thyself. Oh, my sweet Jesus! 
may I burn with the fire of Thy divine love! 
may it consume me, and make of my soul a ho¬ 
locaust to Thy glory.” 

She was so penetrated with this love, that it 
was the ordinary subject of her conversations 
with others; for whenever she spoke with ladies 
or with young girls, she always began by these 
words : “ Let us love God; let us love Him with 
all our hearts.” We may say, in a word, that 
the love of God was the salt with which she sea¬ 
soned all her words, either in conversation, in 
answering questions, or when civility obliged 
her to speak to any one. 

All her pleasure was in speaking of this love, 
or in hearing others speak of it; and when any 
thing else was made the ?ubject of discourse in 



132 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


her presence, she contrived to turn the conver¬ 
sation, and to make it almost imperceptibly fall 
upon the excellence of charity, and on the happy 
necessity in which we are of loving God with all 
our soul, and with all our strength. She spoke 
very little, but on this occasion she was wonder¬ 
fully eloquent. It was easy to perceive, by the 
\ fire that sparkled in her eyes, that in these de¬ 
lightful discourses on the love of God, her tongue 
was the faithful interpreter of her heart, and 
that she drew from the abundance of the charity 
with which it was replenished, the substance of 
everything she said. It was delightful to hear 
her when praying in her hermitage, giving full 
scope to her love, and exhorting all creatures to 
love God, who had given them their being. She 
generally remained two or three hours in these 
transports, and those who observed her closely, 
sometimes saw her take a harp, and joining the 
sweetness of her beautiful voice to the symphony 
of that instrument, she sang canticles of praise 
to God for his love towards men. As divine 
love is a fire, it cannot lie so concealed in tho 
soul as not sometimes to manifest its presence 
by actions of piety, to which the soul is carried 
by the desire of pleasing God. S. Rose, reflect- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


133 


ing on 5 day on the charity which S. Catherine 
of Sienna had shown towards Jesus Christ, hid¬ 
den under the form of a beggar, in depriving 
herself of her garments to clothe Him, thought 
she might imitate her by making a sort of spi¬ 
ritual and mysterious garment for the Infant 
Jesus of several acts of virtue. This is the for¬ 
mula, which was found in her own handwriting: 

“ Jesus. 

“ This year, 1616, by the grace ot my Sa¬ 
viour, and under the protection of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary, I will clothe my Divine Jesus, 
whom the Church will soon represent to us born 
naked, in a manger, exposed to all the severity 
of winter. I will make Him an under garment 
of fifty Litanies, of nine hundred pair of beads, 
which I will recite, and of five days of absti¬ 
nence from every sort of nourishment, in honour 
of the adorable mystery of the Incarnation. I 
will compose his swaddling clothes of nine visits 
to the most Blessed Sacrament, of nine Psalters 
of the Blessed Virgin, and of nine fasting days, 
to honour the nine months during which He 
was inclosed in her chaste womb. His covering 
Bhall consist of five days passed without eat* 



134 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


mg or drinking; of five visits to the most 
Blessed. Sacrament, and of as many Rosaries in 
honour of His birth in this world. His bands 
shall be made of three chaplets of our Lord ; of 
five days’ abstinence from food, and of five sta- 
/ tions which I will make before the most Blessed 
Sacrament. For the fringes and borders of His 
swaddling clothes and bands, I will make thirty- 
three extra communions ; I will assist at thirty- 
three masses; I will spend thirty-three hours in 
mental prayer; I will recite thirty-three times 
the Pater Noster, thirty-three times the Ave 
Maria, Credo, Gloria Patria, and Salve Regina, 
each; I will also recite thirty-three Rosaries, I 
will fast thirty-three days, I will take three 
thousand stripes of the discipline, in honour of 
the thirty-three years he spent on earth. Lastly, 
I offer as a gift to my dear Jesus, my tears, my 
groans, and all the acts of love which I shall 
make. With this I offer my heart and soul, that 
there may be nothing in me which is not entirely 
consecrated to Him.” 

Zeal being the fruit of love, draws its degrees 
of excellence from the cause which gives birth 
to it: so that if love be imperfect, zeal is cold 
and languishing: on the contrary, if love be 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


135 


generous, zeal is all on fire; thus, as the love 
of God which consumed the soul of S. Rose was 
most ardent, she had an incomparable zeal for 
His glory. 

There was no one in the house bold enough 
to say one word in her presence contrary to mo¬ 
desty : they well knew that her generous zeal for 
the interests of God would prompt her to con¬ 
demn it instantly. She could not endure a word 
to be spoken in the church, much less that it 
should be made a place for conversation; her 
zeal closing her eyes to human respect and every 
consideration of flesh and blood, gave her a holy 
confidence in speaking to any one whatever who 
committed this act of irreverence. From her 
youth up, when she heard her brothers and sis¬ 
ters sing profane airs or immodest verses, she 
wept for grief, and showed them, by the abun¬ 
dance of her tears, how much the freedom of their 
words wounded her heart. She must indeed have 
felt it exceedingly; for she had so high an esteem 
for tears, which she said belonged to the treasury 
of God, and were a useful sort of money with 
which we may purchase the kingdom of heaven, 
that she could not endure that they should be 
wasted for any earthly cause; hence, seeing her 



136 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


mother shedding them one day profusely for tn 
fles, she said, “ Ah, mother! why do you waste 
this precious merchandise, which you might de¬ 
posit in the treasury of God, to use when they 
might avail towards your salvation ?” This zeal 
y /made her enter so deeply into the interests of 
her Divine Spouse, that she felt an incredible 
joy when she saw Him served and honoured by 
men; and a poor nun having returned to her 
convent after having scandalously left it, our 
Saint showed more pleasure on this occasion 
than if the crown of Peru and all America had 
been placed on her head; and God, to increase 
her joy, showed her in spirit the eminent sanc¬ 
tity which this repentant religious would attain 
through her tears and groans. Her confessor 
having been requested to preach on some con¬ 
siderable occasion, when all the first people in 
the town would be present, was attacked with a 
violent fever. Rose being acquainted with his in¬ 
disposition, very earnestly begged of Almighty 
God to send her the fever from which her con¬ 
fessor was suffering. In the confidence she felt 
that her prayer would be heard, she sent to tell 
him to prepare for this great action, for he would 
cei tainly be without fever whei he entered the 



ST. ROSE OF 1IMA. 


137 


pulpit, which happened according lo her desires; 
for he acquitted himself of this honourable em¬ 
ployment greatly to the satisfaction of his hear¬ 
ers, while S. Rose was suffering the burning heats 
of his fever. 

Almighty God testified His approbation of the 
eagerness of S. Rose in advancing His glory by 
a famous miracle. In the year 1617, which was 
the year in which she died, on the 15th April, 
about five o’clock in the evening, as she was 
praying in the oratory of Don Gonzalez before a 
very beautiful statue of Jesus Christ, she felt so 
ardent a love of God, that, unable to moderate its 
violence, she rose up and began to address Him, 
and after some devout colloquies, she begged 
Him to enkindle the fire of His love in the hearts 
of men. At the same instant in which she made 
this prayer, the daughter of Don Gonzalez per¬ 
ceived that this image of the Son of God was 
quite moist with perspiration, by which He made 
known, in order to satisfy Rose’s desire, the im¬ 
mensity of His charity for men, that being con¬ 
vinced of it by this prodigy, they might detach 
their affections from creatures, to consecrate 
them to Him, and to love Him only. 

Don Gonzalez hurried to the place when he 
12 * 



188 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


heard ;ae miracle, and seeing the image sweat, 
he sent mmediately for the Rev. Fathers Diego 
Martine t, and Diego Penalosa, that they might 
be eye-witnesses of this prodigy. The first be¬ 
ing prevented, the second came, and having en¬ 
tered the oratory, he saw the sweat, and wiped 
it off himself with cotton. He perceived that 
this miraculous appearance augmented in pro¬ 
portion as he wiped it. This miracleTasted four 
hours, in the presence of a number of persons of 
, consideration, whom this prodigy had drawn to 
the place. They all saw several drops of per¬ 
spiration, as large as little beads, rise succes¬ 
sively on the face of this statue one after the 
other, and run down the hair and neck: the more 
they wiped the more abundant did the sweat be¬ 
come, but it did not injure the colours of the 
painting; on the contrary, it seemed like a var¬ 
nish, which gave them additional brightness. 
Don Barthelemy Lobo Guerrero, then archbishop 
of Lima, appointed Dr. Juan de la Roca, curate 
and archdeacon of the metropolitan church, as 
as judge, to examine it juridically. When the 
examination had been made, and the depositions 
of the witnesses had been taken this sw r eat was 
declared to be miraculous, not proceeding from 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


189 


the coldness :>f the place, nor from the unctuous 
moisture of the oil, with which the colours used 
in painting the statue had been mixed, but that 
it was an effect of the omnipotence of God, who 
acts when he pleases out of the order of nature 
and above the rules of art. 

Don Gonzalez was very uneasy about this: he 
feared that this prodigy might be a forerunner 
of the justice of God, who intended, perhaps, to 
punish some secret sin committed by some mem¬ 
ber of his family : but S. Rose removed his fear, 
telling him that Jesus Christ in this image had 
sweated to animate mankind to love Him. This 
miracle, which so sweetly invited men to love 
God, accomplished the charitable desire of our 
Saint, for all those who had occular demonstra¬ 
tion of it felt an internal fire, which inflamed 
them with the ardour of the charity of Jesus 
Christ, and they were happily pierced with the 
darts of His divine love. This miracle gave rise 
to another, for S. Rose having seriously injured 
herself by a fall, the surgeons feared she would 
die, or at least be a cripple the rest of her life; 
but she having more confidence in the goodness 
of God than in the efficacy of remedies, thought 
that she should certainly be cured if she were to 



140 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA, 


dip a little cotton in the sweat of that nnage, 
and apply it to her wounded arm ; but from the 
delight she felt in suffering, she dared not do it 
without speaking first to her confessor, and ob¬ 
taining his permission. He wished her to follow 
the first inspiration, believing that Almighty 
God had sent it, in order to manifest His power 
by some new miracle. As soon as she applied 
this moistened cotton to her arm, she felt the 
nerves return to their place, the cartilages grow 
stronger, the tumour sink down, and the mus¬ 
cles stretch out. This was a source of astonish¬ 
ment to the surgeons, who despaired of curing 
this evil, which resisted their remedies. 


CHAPTER XIY. 

OF HER DEVOTION TOWARDS THE MOST BLESSED 
SACRAMENT, IN DEFENCE OF WHICH SHE ONCE 
PREPARED HERSELF TO SUFFER MARTYRDOM. 

If the union of the soul with God be the prin¬ 
ciple of its happiness and of its progress in virtue, 
it necessarily follows, that devotion towards the 
most holy Sacrament of the altar is the most 





ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


141 


efficacious moans of arriving in a short time at 
perfection and sanctity. From this inexhausti¬ 
ble source of grace S. Rose drew strength, light, 
and heat; through this sacred channel Almighty 
God communicated Himself intimately to her, 
and, in fine, it was by the frequent use of this 
adorable mystery that, possessing the fulness of 
God in herself, she was enabled to say with S. 
Paul, that she lived no longer a natural and hu¬ 
man life, but that Jesus Christ her Divine Spouse 
lived in her, since the grace of this august Sacra¬ 
ment had quite transformed her into Him. 

She communicated regularly three times a 
week, frequently five times, and in some circum¬ 
stances of her life she communicated every day, 
according to the orders given her by those who 
regulated her conscience. As this Divine Sacra¬ 
ment operates only according to the dispositions 
of the receiver, S. Rose prepared for it by con¬ 
fession, which she frequented not by routine, as 
many in the world do who profess devotion, and 
who confess their imperfections without any sor¬ 
row for them, but, with a contrite heart, trying 
to blot out her sins by a river of tears, and to 
obtain par ion from the mercy of God by her 
sighs. On the e^ve of her communion she fasted 



142 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


rigorously on bread and water usually, a'^d took 
the discipline to blood, and by these austerities 
she sought to imitate Jesus Christ her Spouse, 
who is as a victim immolated in this mystery. 

She had also the holy custom of preparing 
her heart for Him by a number of ejaculatory 
prayers, which she used to express the loving 
impatience she felt to possess Him; jn a word, 
she disposed herself as carefully for each com¬ 
munion, as if she were going to enjoy that hap¬ 
piness for the last time in her life. Every time 
she communicated she was so transported with 
love, that the fire of charity which consumed her 
soul showed itself on her countenance, and made 
it appear so red, and sometimes so bright, that 
even the priests were seized with awe and fear 
when they brought the Sacred Host to commu¬ 
nicate her. She was often surrounded with light 
at the altar; sometimes she seemed to possess a 
superhuman beauty ; and those who noticed this 
change would have taken her for an angel, had 
not her face resumed its ordinary expression; 
and many religious persons have attested, that 
they saw issue from her eyes, from her hands, 
and from almost every part of her body, rays as 
brilliant as those of the sun, when she was making 



ST. HOSE OF LIMA. 


143 


her thanksgiving after communion. Her con¬ 
fessors wished sometimes to oblige her to declare 
the admirable elfects which this adorable Sacra¬ 
ment operated in her soul; she obeyed, but at 
each word she stopped short, finding it difficult 
to express the sentiments of her mind, and what 
passed in her interior; nevertheless, she told 
them, to give them some faint idea of these 
things, that her heart, her mind, and her whole 
self became, as it were, transported into God; 
that she experienced such excessive joy, that all 
the pleasures of the earth were not to be com 
pared to those she tasted in this magnificent 
banquet, where Almighty God seems to make 
those whom He admits to this sumptuous feast 
partakers in His happiness and in His divinity. 
She declared to them also, that she found in it 
an entire satiety; and that she derived from it 
so extraordinary a strength, that though before 
communion she was quite weak from fasting, and 
from the loss of the blood which she drew from 
her veins by disciplines, so that she was some¬ 
times obliged to rest in the middle of the church, 
not being able to go as far as the a«ltar without 
taking breath, she went from the holy table with 
the same strength as the prophet Elias felt after 



144 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


having eaten bread baked in the ashes, which 
was the symbol of the blessed Eucharist, and of 
the strength which it communicates to those who 
receive it. After communion she felt a certain 
vigour, which so completely recruited her ex¬ 
hausted strength that she was able to return 
home without difficulty. 

Those belonging to the family have borne 
vitness, that the satiety which she found in the 
sacred table replenished her so completely, that 
she shut herself up in her room or in her her¬ 
mitage without taking any nourishment, and that 
she remained there till night, and often till the 
next day, devoutly occupied and quite enrap¬ 
tured in the chaste embraces of her Divine 
Spouse; and when they called or came to seek 
her at the time of meals, she, who had fasted the 
day before, excused herself, saying, it was im¬ 
possible for her to take anything; so that she 
was sometimes known to fast eight whole days; 
and, in imitation of S. Catherine of Sienna, to 
take no other food than that which she had re¬ 
ceived at the banquet of angels in the holy com¬ 
munion. She had so great a love and devotion 
towards the most holy Sacrament, that on her 
eommunion days she assisted at every mass that 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


145 


was said t J noon with such great recollection, 
that she kept her eyes always fixed on the altar, 
and though a great number of persons passed 
and repassed continually before her, she saw 
no one. 

When the forty-hours’ prayer was taking place 
in any church, she went thither, and remained 
motionless before the most holy Sacrament, com¬ 
pletely absorbed in God from morning till night. 
She thought not of food or drink, and though 
the excessive heat of the country required that 
she should assuage her thirst with a little water, 
she felt in her heart a fire of love more vehement 
than that which heated her corporally, and this 
made her forget necessary refreshment. The 
following w T as her method of proceeding during 
the Octave of the most blessed Sacrament, and 
the manner in which she spent the four last years 
of her life. She was not satisfied with accom¬ 
panying the Beloved of her heart in procession 
to the sepulchre on Maundy Thursday; she re¬ 
mained in His company for twenty-four hours, 
with such profound respect that she dared not 
sit, nor even lean ever so little against the wall 
to support her extreme weakness. Any one who 
saw her standing, motionless, bathed in tears, 
13 



146 


ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


now and then looking towards heaven and sigh¬ 
ing in the bitterness of her heart, would have 
taken her for another Magdalen, inseparably at¬ 
tached to the sepulchre of her dear Master by 
the invisible chains of His lov.e. When the most 
blessed Sacrament was carried through the town 
to the sick, she felt so transported with joy at 
the sound of the bell, that this interior gladness 
pervaded her whole body. At the sight of her 
God she knelt down wherever she was, and after 
having adored, prostrate on the earth, she ac¬ 
companied Him to the sick, and followed Him 
to the church with unspeakable satisfaction, 
thinking herself infinitely happy on these occa¬ 
sions, which she said were extremely favourable 
to her for offering her homage to the Son of God, 
her Sovereign Lord. 

She took great pleasure in washing the church 
linen, and in making and repairing neatly every 
thing connected with the decoration of the altar. 
She made flowers of gold and silk for this pur¬ 
pose ; and for fear that the time which she spent 
in these works of piety might prevent her from 
helping her family, who partly depended on her 
labours for a living, she devoted part of the night 
to them, taking away the hours from her sleep 




ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


147 


to consecrate them to the embellishment of the 
house of God. Her love for this adorable mys¬ 
tery was so generous, that she resolved once to 
defend it from the rage of heretics at the ex¬ 
pense of her blood and life; for in her fear that 
they would get possession of the blessed Sacra¬ 
ment, and make it the subject of profanation and 
sacrilege, she ran to the church to oppose their 
violence by force, though she could not doubt 
that they would despise her resistance, and tear 
her in pieces if she attempted to oppose their de¬ 
sign. It happened as follows: 

In the month of August, 1615, a powerful 
fleet of the States-General of Holland appeared 
on the coasts of Peru. Already the vanguard 
of the enemy was seen approaching the port of 
Lima, and the greater part of the ships belong¬ 
ing to this naval armament coasted so near the 
land, that some merchants of Lima, whom this 
fleet had taken by surprise, thought they saw 
the boats of the admiral’s ship and of the other 
vessels put on land a quantity of soldiers. Every 
one was in tears; nothing was heard but the 
cries of women and children, and the men pre¬ 
pared to defend themselves in such confusion 
and disorder, that nothing could be expected but 



148 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


the total ruin of the country. Rose, who did not 
look upon these heretics as the enemies of her 
country, but as the mortal enemies of Jesus 
Christ, thought of nothing in this general con¬ 
sternation but of defending the most blessed 
Sacrament at the peril of her life; for It was 
exposed in all the churches of the town. She 
animated her companions, and exhorted them to 
difi..gmierously for the defence of this most au¬ 
gust Mystery. With the resolution of suffering 
herself to be slain by these soldiers, she dis¬ 
posed herself to resist their violence coura¬ 
geously ; she mounted on the steps of the altar 
with the same resolution as S. Ambrose repre¬ 
sents Judith to have acted in approaching the 
camp of the enemies of God, to fight and die 
there. Rose knew very well that she could not 
resist the violence of those who would put her to 
death; but she prepared to fight, to honour the 
belief in this great Sacrament. 

From her sparkling eyes, her proud air, and 
the tone of her voice, which was that of a heroine 
exhorting the troops to combat, she might have 
been taken for a Christian Minerva, armed for 
the defence of religion, or for an angry lioness, 
which rushes on against the weapons of the hun- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA 


H9 


ters, carrying its little ones. She was found in 
this state of preparation and resolution to die 
on the steps of the altar by the hand of those 
heretical soldiers, when news was brought that 
the fleet had raised anchor, and sailed away 
without any manifestation of hostility. Every¬ 
where in Lima the people were heard blessing 
God ; each one expressed his joy and gratitude; 
Rose alone seemed inconsolable in this general 
delight; for she grieved to have lost the oppor¬ 
tunity of martyrdom which she had thought so 
near. She had so earnest a desire of dying a 
martyr, that she every day asked of Almighty 
God the grace of shedding her blood, and of 
dying by the hand of a sacrilegious person or 
an executioner. She often regretted that she 
was not born in those times when tyrants cruelly 
massacred the Christians, thinking that then 
she should not have failed to lose her life for Je¬ 
sus Christ. 

This desire of martyrdom, which neither the 
peace of the Church, ncr the little prospect she 
saw of being exposed to the persecution of here¬ 
tics and infidels, could extinguish in her heart, 
often made her say, with tears in her eyes, to 
Francis Hurtado de Bustamente, “ Would to 
13 * 



150 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


God that I could find the opportunity and the 
means of going to distant pagan countries, that 
I might die by the hands of barbarians for Je¬ 
sus Christ my dear Spouse!” 


CHAPTER XV. 

OF HER DEVOTION TO AN IMAGE OF OUR BLESSED 
LADY, TO THE SIGN OF THE CROSS, AND TO HER 
DEAR MISTRESS S. CATHERINE OF SIENNA. 

For more than a century the people of the 
town of Lima had honoured a statue of the 
Blessed Virgin in the church of the Friar 
Preachers, under the name of Our Lady of the 
Rosary, a devotion which these monks had 
taught to the people at the time that they 
planted the faith by their instructions in the 
most celebrated provinces of America. But be¬ 
fore we speak of the graces which S. Rose re¬ 
ceived by this means, we must go farther back, 
and show what rendered the people so devout to 
this image. 

It was a wooden statue of our Blessed Lady, 
five feet high, which the first Spanish Christians 





ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


151 


who passed c ver into Peru with our forefathers 
brought from Europe with them to be the power¬ 
ful protectress of their project. She holds the 
Infant Jesus with her left arm, and with the 
right-hand offers a Rosary. When they had set¬ 
tled in this country, and had built this famous 
town now called Lima, they raised a superb 
church for the religious of the Order of Friar 
Preachers, under the name of the Holy Rosary, 
which was thejirst church and the first parish in 
which baptismal fonts were erected for the rege¬ 
neration of spiritual children to Jesus Christ 
in the Hew World; and they placed in it this 
image, which Vas honoured by the people with 
special veneration, on account of the signal fa¬ 
vours received through the protection of the 
Blessed Virgin of the Holy Rosary. The year 
1535 was marked by one of these instances of 
her patronage. The Indians had assembled near 
Caxaguana, in the province of Cusco, to the 
number of two hundred thousand, in order to 
massacre the Christians; and they felt more as¬ 
sured of the victory, as the Spanish army op¬ 
posed to them consisted only of six hundred 
men. In this consternation the religious men, 
having placed themselves at the head of the 



152 


SI, ROSE OF LIMA. 


Christian troops, exhorted them to implore the 
protection of our Lady of the Holy Rosary. 
They did so, and, filled with confidence in her 
assistance, they gave battle to this great multi¬ 
tude of Indians. At the moment in which the 
engagement began, they perceived in the air the 
Blessed Virgin, under the same form as she is 
represented in the Church of the Rosary, hold¬ 
ing a rod in her hand, and threatening the In¬ 
dians with death if they did not withdraw. The 
infidels were so alarmed at this vision, and sc 
dazzled with the splendour that surrounded the 
Blessed Virgin, that they begged for quarter, 
and submitted not only to Spain, *but also to the 
yoke of Jesus Christ, by becoming Christians. 
This memorable victory increased the devotion 
of the people towards our Lady of the Rosary 
so much, that Philip IV. king of Spain, having 
placed his kingdom of Peru under the protection 
of the Blessed Virgin on the 27th May, 1643, 
and having given notice of his intention to the 
archbishop, the viceroy, and magistrates of 
Lima, exhorted them to choose some image of 
the Blessed Virgin, and address to it their pray¬ 
ers, that they might obtain succour from he: in 
the dangers which threatened the country. 




ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


153 


When the orders of his Catholic majesty were 
received, the archbishop, the viceroy, and the 
two states, ecclesiastical and secular, chose our 
Lady of the Rosary to be the protectress of the 
whole kingdom of Peru, and resolved that the 
people should every year go in procession, on 
the Monday in Low Week, to the Church of the 
Friar Preachers, to offer their prayers to her. 
This procession took place every year with great 
pomp ; this image of our Lady was carried from 
the church through the town, the garrison being 
under arms; the chapter of the cathedral, the 
religious, the viceroy, the officers and magis¬ 
trates assisted at it. The devotion towards this 
image was so great, that every day a crowd of 
people came to pray before it. 

S. Rose spent some time every day in prayer 
on her knees before the altar on which this image 
was placed, with very great devotion, which in¬ 
creased more and more in her heart as she per¬ 
ceived that this inanimate statue cast towards 
her looks of tenderness, and made certain signs 
as if it wished to caress her, and manifest to her 
by these miraculous movements, the love which 
the Blessed Virgin, of whom it was but the copy, 
bore to her. She noticed the same affability in 



154 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


the figure of the Infant Jesus whom this image 
was represented as holding; she saw Him some- 
times smile, extending His arms to caress her, 
and He gave her so many marks by these visi¬ 
ble signs, that He answered the love which she 
bore Him, that she felt as certain of it as if she 
had seen His affection for her painted or en¬ 
graved in large letters. It seemed to her that 
this Divine Infant wished to leave His mother, 
to throw Himself into her arms and caress her 
with greater facility. It was looked upon in the 
town as certain, that Rose obtained whatever 
she asked of Heaven when she prayed before 
this image, and she herself felt as sure of obtain¬ 
ing what she asked through the intercession of 
our Lady of the Rosary, as if she had received 
from Heaven letters patent, confirming all the 
graces she requested for herself or for others. 

She was also very devout to another image of 
the Blessed Virgin, which she honoured particu¬ 
larly in her oratory at home, because she had 
remarked that this image gave signs of life; that 
it changed its position, approached her, smiled 
upon her, and offered her the same caresses as if 
it were truly the Blessed Virgin, and not a mere 
copy of the original. When a lady who had 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


155 


come to see her, was relating in the presence of 
this image the great miracles which the Blessed 
‘Virgin worked every day at Achota, a place 
of devotion near Madrid in Spain, in favour of 
those devout persons who came to honour her, 
and of the sick, who sought her protection to 
obtain from God the cure of their diseases, Bose 
remarked, during this conversation, that her 
image gave great signs of joy, looked at her 
with a smiling countenance, and shone more 
brightly than usual. 

Every Saturday she took care to adorn the 
Chapel of the Bosary w T ith flowers which she 
had cultivated'expressly for this purpose. She 
was never known to fail in this act of devotion; 
and in summer, when the heat of the sun dries 
up all the plants, as well as in winter, when the 
cold renders gardens unproductive, the altar was 
seen as richly ornamented with flowers as in the 
time of spring. She had also undertaken to 
adorn with a robe this image, to which she had 
so great a devotion; but the spiritual garment 
which she composed of her prayers, her fasts, 
her disciplines, her tears, and of all the acts of 
virtue she practised, as an ornament for the 
Queen of Heaven, was much more pleasing to 



156 


ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


her thafc if she had clothed her with some costly 
material. The following is the method she 
practised, which she wrote herself: 

“ Jesus, Mary. 

“ The spiritual garment which I, sister Rose 
of S. Mary, unworthy servant of the Queen of 
Angels, prepare, by her help, for the Blessed 
Virgin, Mother of God. 1st, Her tunic shall con¬ 
sist of six hundred Ave Marias, as many Salve 
Reginas, and of fifteen fasting days, in honour 
of the spiritual joy which she felt in her holy 
soul when the archangel announced to her the 
Incarnation of the Word in hei* chaste womb. 
2ndly, The material for this mysterious robe 
shall be of six hundred Ave Marias, six hundred 
Salve Reginas, fifteen Rosaries, and fifteen fast¬ 
ing days, in honour of the joy she felt in going 
to visit her cousin S. Elizabeth. 3rdly, I will 
border it with six hundred Ave Marias, as many 
Salve Reginas, fifteen Rosaries, and fifteen fast¬ 
ing days, in honour of the joy which filled her 
heart when the Son of God was born into the 
world. 4thly, The clasps shall be made of six 
hundred Ave Marias, of six hundred Salve Re¬ 
ginas, and fifteen fasting days, in honour of her 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


157 


interior joy in offering her Son Jesus Christ in 
the Temple. 5thly, Her necklace shad be com¬ 
posed of six hundred Ave Marias, as many 
Salves, of fifteen fasting days, and fifteen Ro¬ 
saries, in honour of that joy she felt in finding 
her Son in the Temple, in the midst of the doc¬ 
tors, after having lost Him. 6thly, The sceptre 
that I shall place in her hand shall be made of 
thirty-three Paters, thirty-three Rosaries, thirty- 
three Gloria Patris, and thirty-three Salve Re¬ 
ginas, in honour of the thirty-three years which 
Jesus Christ, God and Man, lived on earth for 
our salvation.” A. little below she wrote:— 
“ May God be eternally glorified, and His most 
pure Mother, the Virgin Mary, honoured by 
every creature! I have made this spiritual gar¬ 
ment, and have acquitted myself of this devo¬ 
tion, by the help of the grace of my God, who 
has supplied for my defects.” 

She had a wonderful devotion to the sign of 
the cross; she embraced every day a large 
wooden cross, which she had in her cell in the 
garden, with such tender sentiments of love and 
respect, that it was easy to see that she bore its 
mysteries deeply engraved in her heart. Where- 
ever she saw a cross she knelt down to venerate 
14 



158 


ST. R0Si5 OF LIMA. 


it. She had the same respect for every thing 
which bore the figure of a cross; for when she 
saw any representation of it in pieces of wood 
placed across, or in the interwoven branches of 
trees or hedges, or in pieces of straw, or in the 
bolts of doors, she felt herself interiorly moved 
by the form of the sign of our salvation, and 
never passed without showing marks of respect 
and veneration. Amongst the plants and flowers 
which she cultivated in her father’s garden, she 
had a large Rosemary, the principal branches 
of which formed a cross. The wife of the vice¬ 
roy of Peru asked her for one of them; not be¬ 
ing able to refuse so small a gift to a lady of her 
merit and quality, she sent her one; but as soon 
as it was planted in her garden it died. Rose’s 
confessor having told her of it, she answered, 
that it was not to be wondered at; for the cross 
cannot exist amongst the, delights and vanities 
of the court. She begged that it might be sent 
back to her, and having replanted it, in four days 
it was as green and beautiful as ever. 

The members of the Confraternity of S. Ca¬ 
therine of Sienna were accustomed to carry her 
image, adorned with a crown of flowers and pre¬ 
cious stones, round the town every year. Rose t 



ST. RCSE OF LIMA. 


150 


who honoured her as her dear mistress, and loved 
her as her spiritual mother, could not bear that 
any one else should render her this service; she 
contrived so well, that she was charged with the 
duty of carrying it, and she acquitted herself of 
it, as long as she lived, with great sentiments 
of tenderness and devotion. Besides this com¬ 
mission, she had obtained also the appointment 
of sacristan to her chapel: she adorned her 
image as richly as she could, but with so tender 
a devotion, that in doing it she gave her a thou¬ 
sand kisses, and expressed to her by inflamed 
words the love she had for her. u Oh, my dear 
mistress,” said she one day, “ how I regret not 
to have money to clothe you with another gar¬ 
ment !” As she finished speaking, a slave of 
Madame Hierome de Gama brought her the mo¬ 
ney she had desired for this pious design. 

One day inJVIay, which is the season of win¬ 
ter in the torrid zone, when she wished to adorn 
her as usual, she went to seek flowers in her gar¬ 
den, but not finding any, she commanded a root 
of pinks to furnish her with some; and imme¬ 
diately there appeared several beautiful flowers, 
though there had not been any ready to come 
out before. She gathered in the same manner 



160 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


a quantity of roses from a rose tree. This mira¬ 
cle happened so frequently that it d;d not cause 
surprise any longer to the people of Lima and 
the surrounding country. It was not without 
reason that she honoured with special devotion 
the image of this seraphic virgin; she had often 
seen her surrounded with heavenly light, and 
had been present at the miracle she worked in 
curing Frances de Montoya, by preserving her 
from the effects of a sulphurous flame which had 
entered her eye, and would have caused the loss 
of it without this miraculous assistance. She 
had herself experienced the effects of the good¬ 
ness and power of her dear mistress, when she 
was suffering from gout, which had swelled her 
hands so much that she could not move her 
fingers. 

In the year 1616, S. Rose wishing to adorn 
her image to carry it in procession on the feast 
of S. Dominic, which was drawing near, begged 
her to enable her to continue the performance 
of her usual duties. After her prayer, she put 
her fingers within the rings of her scissors with¬ 
out reflecting on her infirmity, and from the size 
to which her fingers were swollen she could not 
have done this without a niracle. This assist- 



ST. HOSE OF LIMA. 


161 


ance, which her good mistress gave her, filled 
her with joy, and surprised the Receiver, his 
wife, and several physicians very much, and 
they confessed that it was an effect of the Di¬ 
vine Power, which had cured her in an instant. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

OF HER ZEAL FOR THE SALVATION OF SOULS, AND 
HER CARE IN ASSISTING THE POOR IN THEIR 
SICKNESS AND NECESSITIES. 

True love being always accompanied by zeal, 
it follows that we cannot love perfectly the Son 
of God, who takes so great an interest in the 
salvation of those souls whom He has redeemed 
with His precious blood, without being also zeal¬ 
ous for the eternal welfare of sinners for whom 
He suffered death. As this zeal was the charac¬ 
teristic of S. Dominic, and as it still inflames 
the hearts of those among her children whom tie 
Church destines to gain souls, we need not bo 
surprised that S. Rose, his beloved daughter, 
should have received the spirit of zeal of this 
great patriarch with the habit of his order, as she 
14 * 




162 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


showed during her whole life an indefatigable 
zeal for the conversion of sinners, and never 
failed one single day to ask of God for them by 
her prayers, and generally also by her blood, the 
grace to be restored to His friendship. 

Whenever she cast her eyes on the high moun¬ 
tains of South America, she wept for the eter¬ 
nal loss of the barbarous people who dwell 
amongst them. Her zeal being as boundless as 
her charity, she deplored also the damnation of 
the almost innumerable multitude of pagans in 
the New World, who have no knowledge of God 
nor of the adorable mysteries of religion; she 
desired to be torn in pieces and placed at the 
gate of hell, as a net to hinder men from precipi¬ 
tating themselves into it, as they do every day. 

She exhorted religious persons, whenever she 
met them, in words of fire, to go and preach the 
Gospel to the idolatrous Indians, warning them 
especially to shun the studied figures of rhetoric, 
which corrupt the purity of the word of God; 
and not to be attached to the useless subtleties 
of the schools, nor to the questions which are 
therein agitated, unless they may be useful in 
converting infidels. She sometimes said, in a 
transport of zeal, that if Almighty God had made 



ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


163 


her of a different sex, she would have applied 
herself to study, in order to labour, with all her 
power, for the conversion of souls; and that when 
her studies were finished, she would have pene¬ 
trated into the most distant provinces and most 
barbarous nations of America, to enlighten these 
savages with the torch of faith, or to finish her 
life by a glorious martyrdom. Seeing herself 
incapacitated by her sex from executing this cha¬ 
ritable design, as she could not make these long 
journeys, she had resolved to adopt a child, and 
bring him up to study and prayer, by the help 
of the alms given her, and the money she gained 
by her work, that she might send him to preach 
to infidels when he was capable of it. 

One of her confessors being undecided about 
accompanying some good religious men in a mis¬ 
sion to the Indians, for which they were pre¬ 
paring, she made over to him half the merit she 
might have gained by the good works which she 
had performed by the grace of God, in order to 
animate him to this enterprise, in which the sal¬ 
vation of a great number of souls was in ques¬ 
tion. If she had great zeal for these poor In¬ 
dians, what shall we say of that which she mani¬ 
fested for the salvation of Christians, who are, 



164 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


as S. Paul says, of the household of the faith, 
when she saw them in danger of losing heaven 
by their crimes and excesses ? She took every 
day severe disciplines for their conversion; and 
as she could not keep to herself the zeal which 
inflamed her, she made it known by these words, 
which she sometimes uttered: “ Ah, if it were 
permitted to me to exercise the function of 
preacher, I would go by day and by night, bare¬ 
foot, into the most public places, covered with a 
hair shirt, and bearing a large cross on my shoul¬ 
ders, to exhort sinners to do penance, and to 
represent to them the fearful severity of the 
judgments of God.” For this reason she mo¬ 
destly advised those who were engaged in the 
apostolical ministry, to make these subjects the 
ordinary matter of their discourses, to renounce 
the ornaments of worldly rhetoric, and to ab¬ 
stain from those studied declamations, which are 
more suited to the theatre than to the pulpit, be¬ 
cause preachers are established by Almighty 
God to be fishers of men, that is, to withdraw 
them from sin and hell by their fervent exhor¬ 
tations. 

As she was animated with the spirit of her 
father, S. Dominic, she would have considered 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


165 


herself to have degenerated from the glorious 
quality of his daughter, if she had not imitated 
his ardent charity for others; therefore all her 
aim was to draw men to God, to bring them from 
vice, and to inspire them with a love for virtue. 
She never spoke with any one without leading 
the conversation to the necessity of knowing, 
loving, and serving God, and to the obligation 
contracted by every Christian of leading a holy 
life, of renouncing the maxims and vanities of 
the world, and of clothing themselves with Je¬ 
sus Christ, by an imitation of those virtues which 
He has practised to give us an example. She 
was so thoroughly persuaded of the truths she 
uttered, and so deeply touched by them, that she 
scarcely spoke to any person without gaining 
him to God, and inducing him to change his life. 

Almighty God often made use of her in a mi¬ 
raculous manner to contribute to the conversion 
of several persons engaged in vice. A young 
man of high family, but whose life did not cor¬ 
respond with his noble blood, despairing of mar¬ 
rying Rose, whom he passionately loved, sought 
at least some comfort in the pleasure of seeing 
her; he watched carefully for opportunities; he 
gained her mother over, and agreed with her 



166 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


that she should order Rose to make collars and 
linen for him, which he pretended to want. When 
her mother called her to speak to him, and to ac- 
company him to the linen draper’s shop, Al¬ 
mighty God made known to Rose the bad inten¬ 
tion of this young gentleman, whose name was 
Don Vincent Montelis Venergas. Thus warned 
by heaven, she met him with civility, spoke to 
him strongly, and filled him with so great a fear 
of the judgments of God, that he left her en¬ 
tirely converted, and so touched with what she 
had said, that he gave himself wholly to God, 
and applied himself so diligently to the care of 
his salvation, that from that time he lived in sen¬ 
timents of exemplary piety, and generally com¬ 
municated every week. 

She contributed no less to the salvation of a 
woman whose passionate temper caused her to fall 
into such excesses of impatience every minute, 
that it was impossible to live with her and to 
have a quarter of an hour’s peace. She went one 
day to visit S. Rose in her cell, and this holy 
virgin made her a discourse on the meekness 
which the Son of God has taught us by His 
words and example; and she showed her so effi¬ 
caciously the excellence and necessity of this 



!5T. rose of lima. 


167 


virtue, whbh is, in some degree, the spirit of 
Christianity, that this woman overcame her fiery 
and passionate temper, telling every one that 
she had been delighted with the admonitions of 
our Saint, and that the sweetness of her eyes 
and words extinguished always in her the im¬ 
petuous sallies of anger to which her temper, 
and a long indulged habit, gave rise continually 
in her heart. 

S. Rose’s confessor, Father Peter of Louysa, 
knowing the greatness of her compassionate 
zeal, informed her that a certain religious per¬ 
son was suffering dreadful pains; in his agony 
he was seen to sweat, shudder, and tremble with 
a. lively apprehension of the rigour of God’s 
judgments. She begged this good father to for¬ 
tify him and to animate him to hope by the re¬ 
presentation of the boundless mercy of Almighty 
God; and to offer him from her a part of all the 
good she had done during her life in the service 
of God, in order to supply what might be want¬ 
ing to him before he could enter heaven; and to 
tell him that she should be glad to know the state 
of his soul after death, that she might continue 
her prayers and suffrages for him if he stood in 
need of them. He was greatly comforted by 



168 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


S. Rose s liberality, and died in great tranquil¬ 
lity. Some days after, Almighty God revealed 
to her that the soul of this person was in pos¬ 
session of eternal happiness. 

It will, perhaps, appear surprising, and not 
without cause, that the funeral of S. Rose should 
have been honoured with the cries, tears, and 
groans of the poor, and that they should have 
been heard bitterly to lament having lost, in the 
person of Rose, their mother and their nurse, 
since she was so poor herself, and so ill provided 
with the goods of this life, that she was obliged 
to support her family, partly, by her own work ; 
nevertheless, we need not be astonished at it if 
we reflect that charity is powerful, and the zeal 
w T hich accompanies it ingenious in devising 
means to help others in their necessities, when 
it undertakes to do so. She assisted them, first, 
by begging for them in the first houses in the 
town, where her virtue made her well received, 
and where the distribution of plentiful alms was 
confided to her. Secondly, by dividing with 
them the charity which was given her for her¬ 
self, as it was known that she had to support her 
parents and family. Thirdly, by depriving her¬ 
self of the necessaries of life to help them. In 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


169 


this spirit of charity she abstained from food 
eight days, that she might give a poor man the 
money she .would have spent in nourishment 
during that time. Fourthly, by bestowing upon 
them things of which she herself stood in need. 
Her mother having given her six ells of cloth to 
make veils and aprons, and other articles of 
dress, she gave them to two very poor hut very 
virtuous young ladies. Almighty God worked 
several miracles to enable her to give alms, and 
He never failed to supply the necessities of the 
family by extraordinary means when S. Rose, 
confiding in His providence, boldly gave away 
what was intended for their support. 

One day when she had nothing to give a poor 
woman, who begged her for the love of God to 
give her some old clothes to cover her poor little 
half-naked children, she took a large cloak be¬ 
longing to her mother, and without any permis¬ 
sion beyond that which she interiorly received 
from God, who inspired her to perform this ac 
tion, she bestowed it upon her. Her mother be 
ing displeased with this sort of liberality, Rose 
humbly entreated her not to be uneasy, and as¬ 
sured her that Almighty God, who had given her 
this thought, would make her a return beyond 
15 



170 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


the cost of her cloak. She was not leceived in 
her expectation; for the same day a stranger 
came in and gave her fifty pieces of money. 
Three days after, Dame Mary of Sala sent her, 
by a servant, a piece of cloth large enough to 
make another cloak; and the next day the Do¬ 
minicans gave her several ells of serge, as if they 
had all joined together, that they might return 
to the mother of our Saint more than her charit¬ 
able daughter had given to the poor. 

Her charity extended still farther. She made 
herself the attendant and infirmarian of the 
poor. She took home with her a young orphan 
lady, named Jane de Bovadilla, of Azevedo, 
who, besides her great poverty, which obliged 
her to live at the very extremity of the sub¬ 
urbs of the town, had a cancer in her breast, 
of which no one could bear the insupportable 
odour. God revealed her condition to S. Rose: 
immediately she went to see her, offered to wait 
upon her, and that she might be able to do it, 
she persuaded her to come to her father’s house, 
where she would render her every sort of assist¬ 
ance ; still as she knew that her mother was a 
little too much attached to her own interests, 
she told her that she would lire a room in the 



ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


171 


house f )v her, and that she would give fter the 
money to pay herself, only requiring that she 
should keep this a secret. Rose hired the room, 
brought the lady to it, whom she charitably 
waited upon, and worked more than usual to ob¬ 
tain the money necessary for the payment of the 
lodging, which the lady did not quit till she was 
perfectly recovered. 

Her mother having found this out a little later, 
gave her leave to bring home sick persons, and 
after this permission Rose exercised her charity 
indifferently towards the poor women and girls 
whom she met in the streets, whatever might be 
their condition. She was not satisfied with 
giving them a, lodging; she nursed them, made 
their beds, dressed their ulcers, washed their 
clothes, and, in a word, rendered them every 
sort of service, making no distinction between 
the Spaniard and the Indian, the free and the 
slave, the European or the African negroes. 
There was no disease, however loathsome, from 
which these poor women were suffering, that did 
not call into action the indefatigable charity of 
S. Rose, who waited upon them night and day. 

When she had no sick persons to attend at 
home, she went to practise charity at the hos- 



172 


ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


pital; and when she perceived any one whose 
disease caused aversion, she devoted herself to 
her service; and whatever repugnance she might 
feel, she performed for her the most abject ser¬ 
vices. She did not practise these virtues with¬ 
out a strong opposition on the part of nature; 
but she courageously resisted and triumphed 
over it by the violence she did to her feelings, 
of which the following is an instance. She went 
one day to visit a girl in the house of Isabel 
Mexia, who was very ill and had been bled two 
days before. When pur Saint saw the green and 
corrupted blood which had been taken from her 
in a dish, she felt her stomach turn at the sight. 
Ashamed of this weakness, she asked the ser¬ 
vant, who was going to throw the blood away by 
order of the physicians, to give it to her; and 
taking it with her into another room, she drank 
it to the last drop, imitating her good mistress 
S. Catherine of Sienna, by this heroic action, 
who, having felt the same weakness at the sight 
of a dreadful cancer, from which a poor woman, 
whom she had taken upon herself to serve, was 
suffering, filled a vessel with the matter that pro¬ 
ceeded from it, and drank it courageously, to 
overcome the rebellion of nature. 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


173 


Her charity was sometimes stronger than 
death; for she restored a number of sick per¬ 
sons to health; and we might say that the Son 
of God, to show forth the merit of the mercy she 
exercised towards them, had communicated to 
her hands a miraculous virtue to heal them; and 
that as He formerly imparted so efficacious a vir¬ 
tue to the shadow of S. Peter that it restored 
health, it seemed that He had renewed this won¬ 
der in our Saint; for very often the mere sight 
of her effected a cure. We will only cite one 
example, of which the whole people of Lima were 
witness. Don Juan d’Almansa, a man of high 
rank, being very dangerously ill, desired very 
much to speak to S. Rose once more before he 
died. She went to see him, to afford him this 
satisfaction. When she entered his room, he 
remarked quite a heavenly beauty on her coun¬ 
tenance, from which he conceived a firm hope 
that she would obtain his cure from Almighty 
God, who alone could draw him from the state 
to which he was reduced. While she was speak¬ 
ing to him he fell asleep with this consoling 
thought, and awoke as perfectly recovered as if 
he had never been ill. 

15* 



174 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

OF HER CONFIDENCE IN GOD, AND OF THE PROTEC¬ 
TION SHE RECEIVED FROM HIM IN HER NE¬ 
CESSITIES. 

A soul which has tasted the goodness of Al¬ 
mighty God cannot be diffident of His mercies, 
for she knows that He is always disposed to pro¬ 
tect and assist her; and the same charity which 
inflames her will, enlightening her understand¬ 
ing by its brightness, gives her so perfect a 
knowledge of His Divine attributes, that she 
finds continually fresh motives for confidence. 
S. Paul founds it upon three perfections of God, 
which are, as it were, the agents of His love and 
His providence, His power, His wisdom, and His 
goodness. 

As S. Rose had often experienced its effects 
in the loving conduct of God towards her, she 
had an entire confidence in Him in her spiritual 
and corporal necessities, and in those of others 
for whom she solicited graces. She took great 
pleasure in meditating upon, or ir pronouncing 






ST. ROSE OP LIMA. 


175 


these words of the prophet David, “ Incline unto 
my aid, 0 God. 0 Lord, make haste to help 
me.” She had them almost constantly in her 
mouth and in her heart. Her confidence in God 
never allowed her to form the least doubt of three 
things in particular, which she was as sure of 
obtaining as if she had had a revelation from 
heaven. First, she never doubted of her salva- 
vation. Secondly, of the inviolable friendship 
of Almighty God for her. Thirdly, of Ilis all- 
powerful help in the necessities and dangers in 
which she might have need of His protection. 

She was once attacked with a great fear re¬ 
garding the inscrutable mystery of Predestina¬ 
tion, which is, in fact, capable of terrifying the 
most constant and virtuous souls. God did not 
leave her long in this anxiety; He spoke these 
words of consolation in the interior of her soul : 
“My child, know that I only condemn those 
who, by resisting My graces, will obstinately 
lose their souls: continue, therefore, to make a 
good use of them, live in peace, and be no longer 
disturbed with this fear.” After she received 
this favourable answer from her Divine Spouse, 
she had so firm an assurance of her salvation, 
that when Don Juan de Castille asked her if she 



176 


ST. BOSE OF LIMA. 


had had any reve ation, which had given her a 
certainty of salvation, she confessed to him that 
Jesus Christ had made known to her that she 
was predestinated to glory from all eternity; and 
even when lying on her death-bed, overwhelmed 
with the pains she suffered, she received an as¬ 
surance from Heaven that her soul should not 
pass through the fire of purgatory, and that Al¬ 
mighty God was contented with what she en¬ 
dured from the violence of her illness, by which 
she had fully satisfied His divine justice. 

In a rapture which she had once in her cell in 
the garden, she saw in a moment the earth around 
her all covered with roses. As she was much 
surprised to see this singular appearance in the 
season of winter, Jesus Christ appeared to her, 
and after having caressed her, He commanded 
her to gather these flowers. She did so, and 
gave them to Him; but He only asked for one, 
saying to her, “ Thou art this Rose, of which I 
have a most special care.” This chaste spouse 
understood immediately the meaning of these 
mysterious words, and was quite consoled to see 
that God kept it at his right hand, which is the 
place reserved for His elect, as a rose chosen 
from a great number of others. She took the 



ST. ROSE JF LIMA. 


177 


remainder of the flowers, and made of them a 
garland, which she respectfully placed on the 
head of her Divine Spouse, who disappeared after 
having received it with a gracious countenance, 
and given her His benediction. She had the 
same assurance of persevering in the grace and 
friendship of God till death, from a revelation 
by which he made clearly known to her, that He 
had confirmed her in this love, and that she 
should never be separated from it one moment 
during her life. 

In this spirit of confidence, she one day 
told her confessor, that he would sooner make 
her believe herself to be a stone or a log of 
wood, than persuade her that Almighty God 
had a horror or an aversion for her. This great 
confidence fortified her mind wonderfully in all 
the difficulties and dangers which are insepara¬ 
ble from this life, and which so often disturb it. 
She met furious bulls in the street without turn¬ 
ing out of her way, though her mother and all 
the others rushed into the nearest houses to avoid 
the meeting, and called to her to run away for 
fear of being killed ; she contented herself with 
saying, that she was sure these bulls would not 
hurt her; which was verified on two occasions, 



178 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


to the astonishment of the spectators, who 
thought her death inevitable. 

How great was her confidence in God for 
things necessary to life! One day seeing that 
there was no money in the house to buy provi¬ 
sions, nor a bit of bread to eat, she went to open 
the chest in the assurance that God, who never 
abandons those who trust in Him, would provide 
for them. She was not deceived; for she found 
it full of loaves, whiter and of a different shape 
from those they were accustomed to eat. On 
another occasion the honey, which is much used 
in Peru, having failed, and her brothers having 
brought word that there was not a single drop 
remaining, Rose, full of confidence in God, went 
to the place, and found the vessel quite full of 
excellent honey, which lasted the family during 
eight months. 

When her father, Gaspar Florez, was sick, 
and oppressed with sorrow at not being able to 
pay the sum of fifty livres which he owed, and 
which he was pressed to return, Rose, being told 
of it, went to the church to beg God to assist 
him on the occasion,.and not allow him to be put 
to confusion. As she returned she saw a stranger 
enter the house, who gave her father a little 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


179 


purse, which contained precisely the sum he 
wanted to satisfy his creditor. Almighty God 
favoured Rose’s family on many other occasions, 
and by miraculous means, to reward her admi¬ 
rable confidence in Him, in the great necessities 
to which her family was often reduced. 

Her confidence did not merely regard tempo¬ 
ral affairs and necessities ; she manifested it par¬ 
ticularly in things which related to the glory of 
God, even so far as to take upon herself, not¬ 
withstanding her poverty, to furnish the funds 
necessary for the Monastery of S. Catherine of 
Sienna, which was going to be erected. She 
told them that they had nothing to do but to be¬ 
gin to dig the foundations, to collect the mate¬ 
rials, and seek workmen, and that she would 
pay for everything: Almighty God had made 
known to her that her confidence pleased Him, 
and that He would not abandon her on this oc¬ 
casion. This resolution was spoken of by every 
one according to their different humours, but 
nearly all blamed it; some calling it a rash en¬ 
terprise, others terming it insolence and pre¬ 
sumption ; even her mother was displeased, and 
called her foolish and visionary, to talk of raising 
a building that would cost c£10,000 and mone, 



180 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


when she had not a penny. Rose answered 
humbly, that God was the guarantee of His 
word, and that in a few years she would see this 
monastery built. Her mother growing more an¬ 
gry, called her silly and extravagant. “ Well, 
mother,” answered S. Rose, with her usual mild¬ 
ness, “ you will yourself experience the truth of 
this prediction, for you will enter it; you will 
there receive the habit of religion, make your 
vows, and die in the peace of our Lord.” “ I 
become a nun !” cried her mother; what proba- 
bility is there of that ? I am old and poor, and 
I have never had the least thought of a religious 
life.” She did not fail, however, to verify her 
holy daughter’s prediction ; for, in the year 1629, 
after her husband’s death, she received the habit 
of the order of this monastery, at the age of 
sixty: she took the name of sister Mary of S. 
Mary, and when her noviceship was completed, 
she was professed, and died happily a few years 
later. Her poverty was no obstacle to her re¬ 
ception, for she filled one of the places reserved 
by the foundress for poor girls, who were to be 
received gratuitously. We shall speak of this 
monastery in the next chapter. 

It will have been remarked from what we Lave 



ST. ROSE 01 LIMA., 


181 


said, that the care she took to assist the poor, 
and to furnish them abundantly with necessa¬ 
ries in their sickness, was founded only on her 
generous confidence in God, which was so great, 
that she took home indifferently all sorts of sick 
women to nurse them, without troubling herself 
whether or not there was any food for them, or 
any money to buy the necessary drugs and re¬ 
medies ; she confided so entirely in God, that 
she never doubted of His coming to her assist¬ 
ance in her charity towards them; and in fact 
she often remarked, that her family was never 
better off, or more comfortable, than when she 
had the greatest number of sick persons to pro¬ 
vide for. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

SOD MAKES KNOWN TO S. ROSE THAT A MONASTERY 
OF NUNS WILL BE BUILT IN LIMA, UNDER THE 
NAME OF S. CATHERINE OF SIENNA, AND REVEALS 
TO HER SEVERAL OTHER SECRETS. 

Love is always communicative; it allows of no 
secrets between those whose affections it unites; 
and it is a sort of injustice to give the heart to 

16 




182 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


any one without revealing all that it contain* 
of any importance. The Son of God Himself 
gave to His apostles a most incontestable proof 
of His friendship for them, when he told them 
that He had made them partakers of all the se¬ 
crets which He had learned in the bosom of His 
Father from all eternity. As this Blessed Sa¬ 
viour loved S. Rose so tenderly, and even pub¬ 
licly took her for His Spouse, we cannot wonder 
that He honoured her with the gift of prophecy. 
There is in Lima a celebrated monastery of two 
hundred nuns, of the Order of S. Dominic, built 
in the year 1622, by the pious liberality of Ma¬ 
dam Lucy Guerra de la Daga, an illustrious and 
very virtuous widow. God had revealed to S, 
Rose the foundation of this 'Convent ten years 
before it was begun, and had shown it to her, 
sometimes by mysterious symbols, sometimes in 
the same form in which it at present appears, 
which made her speak of it with as much cer¬ 
tainty as if she had seen it built and perfectly 
finished. She named the persons whom God 
had chosen to serve Him therein; she mentioned 
their number; she marked out the spot where it 
would be built, and sketched the design of it cn 
a table; she told Father Louis of Bilboa, her 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


183 


confessor, that he would be the first to celebrate 
mass in it; she recognized, on seeing her, the 
person whom God had shown her as the first 
prioress, and, transported with joy, she went to 
embrace her, and congratulate with her on her 
election; and by the kiss of peace she gave her, 
she seemed to consecrate her to that charge for 
which God had chosen her. 

The greater number of those who heard this 
foundation spoken of so confidently, treated her 
predictions as the fancies of a heated brain, for 
there was then no human probability that things 
would fall out as she said they would, as the 
lady of rank whom she named as the foundress 
was engaged in the bonds of matrimony, which 
deprived her of the liberty of disposing of her 
fortune; she had also several children; and an¬ 
other circumstance which seemed to destroy all 
hope of accomplishing this foundation was, that 
the person who had been sent to obtain the per¬ 
mission of his Catholic Majesty foi it, had re¬ 
turned without being able to succeed. The pre¬ 
diction of our Saint was, however, accomplished, 
with all its circumstances; for the lady whom 
God had chosen to be the foundress became soon 
after a widow by the death of her husband; and 



184 


ST. ROSE }F LIMA. 


a few days after her five children followed him 
co the grave, so that she was able to devote her 
property to this good work. 

Almighty God removed the obstacles which 
the devil’s malice and the envy of mankind op¬ 
posed to this pious design, and changed so com¬ 
pletely the minds of several magistrates, whose 
resistance and obstinacy had seemed invincible, 
that they not only gave their consent, but be¬ 
came so zealous that they themselves forwarded 
the execution of the project; and in a short time 
this famous monastery was built, which still glo¬ 
ries in the name of the Convent of the blessed 
Rose of S. Mary, though it was not built till five 
years after her death; for she had foretold its 
foundation before any one had projected it. 

God gave S. Rose the first knowledge of it in 
a wonderful manner. One day having gathered 
a quantity of roses in her garden, she began to 
throw them into the air, quite inflamed with de¬ 
votion, and giving vent to sighs which the thought 
of her heavenly Spouse forced from her. Her 
brother finding her thus employed, and with her 
eyes bathed in tears, entreated her to tell him 
the cause of her grief; she would not make 
known this mystery, but God manifested it to 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


185 


him by the wonders of which he was a witness; 
for he saw that the roses which his sister had 
thrown into the air remained suspended there, 
and having first separated, they reunited, and 
when all together represented a beautiful cross, 
lie saw also that the roses which she continued 
to throw formed a border to this mysterious 
cross. S. Rose knew by divine revelation, that 
these roses represented the great number of holy 
virgins who -would rise above the earth by a ge¬ 
nerous contempt of its honours, riches, and plea¬ 
sures to attach themselves inseparably to the 
cross of Jesus Christ by the practice of religious 
virtues, and the exact observance of the rules 
and constitutions which were to consecrate these 
courageous victims to penance and death. 

On another occasion when she was praying, 
God showed her, in spirit, a spacious meadow, 
delightfully enamelled with roses and lilies, in¬ 
closed within a garden, which w'as to be sepa¬ 
rated from the profane intercourse of seculars. 

Father John of Villalobos, of the Company of 
Jesus, a religious man of great merit, juridically 
deposed, that he had several times observed in 
S. Rose a spirit of prophecy, and that she had 
discovered to him the most hidden secrets of his 
16 * 



186 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


interior. She showed the same knowledge in 
regard of Father Philip de Tapia, rector of the 
College at Callao; of a virtuous girl named Mi¬ 
chelle de Massa, and of many other persons 
whom she admonished of certain things so se¬ 
cret, that they confessed she could only have 
known them by revelation. 

This spirit of prophecy enabled her to see what 
took place in other parts, and she predicted some 
events long before they happened. She assured 
some persons who were dangerously ill and al¬ 
most in their agony, that they would recover, 
though the physicians had given them up, and 
had remarked in them the prognostics of inevita¬ 
ble death. She foretold to several young men, 
and to a great number of girls, the state and 
condition which they would one day embrace; 
and by this supernatural light she told some 
that they would enter religion, though at that 
time they seemed quite in a contrary disposi¬ 
tion, and were formerly opposed to this manner 
of life, owing to their engagements in the world. 
She knew that the viceroy would change his 
mind, and would excuse Don Gonzalez from the 
difficult employment which he had destined for 
him, wishing more to remove him from his court 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


187 


than to do him honour; which change of purpose 
rejoiced his family, who were inconsolable at the 
idea of his departure. 

She wrote to one of her brothers, telling him 
that he would have a daughter by his marriage, 
who would be born with the mark of a red rose 
on her face, warning him to take great care of 
her, for she would one day be a great servant 
of God, and that this supernatural mark was a 
sure sign of the wonderful progress she would 
make in charity and other virtues. She knew 
the deception of a negress, who boldly main¬ 
tained that she had been baptised at Panama. 
S. Rose convicted her through secret indications 
of falsehood, and told her so many secrets re¬ 
garding her interior, that this poor creature con¬ 
fessed her attempt to deceive; and powerfully 
touched by S. Rose’s exhortations, demanded 
baptism. Some difficulty was at first made about 
granting it, from the fear that she requested it 
more through human fear than from a true spi¬ 
rit of piety; but S. Rose, who knew the disposi¬ 
tion of her soul, and that death was threatening 
her, caused it to be given to her so opportunely, 
that this new Christian died the next day with 
every mark of perfect contrition for her sins. 



188 


1>T. ROSE OF LIMA. 


Almighty God, who had enlightened her mind 
with so great penetration and discernment that 
she knew the interior of those who came to visit 
her, and predicted future events to them, taught 
her Himself to write, as He taught S. Catherine 
of Sienna, and made known to her so clearly the 
time, the place, the day and the hour of her death, 
that she spoke of her funeral, and specified so 
particularly what would take place at that happy 
time, that it would seem as if she saw these 
events in God in the very manner in which they 
were afterwards accomplished. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

OF HER LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 

The same law which obliges us all to enter the 
world by birth, that we may be capable of being 
made children of God by the grace of regenera¬ 
tion given to us in holy baptism, requires us to 
depart out of it by the door of death, in order 
t} take possession of the inheritance of eternal 
glory, which the Son of God has merited for us 
by His sufferings, and to which the grace of our 




ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


189 


adoption gives us a title. This indispensable 
law of nature makes us regard the death of S. 
Rose, which filled the town of Lima, and nearly 
all Peru, with sighs and tears, in the same light 
as S. Bernard considered that of S. Malachy, 
which drew lamentations from all his religious, 
as the end of his combats, the consummation 
of his virtues, and his triumphant entrance into 
heaven. 

S. Rose having learned by revelation that she 
should die on the day which the Church conse¬ 
crates to honour S. Bartholomew, had from that 
time a particular veneration for this feast, and 
she passed it in particular exercises of piety; 
but not considering this sufficient to honour the 
day, which was to be to her the first of a happy 
eternity, she caused several little children to fast 
with her on the eve, and their innocence, being 
very pleasing to God, greatly increased the merit 
of this mortification. Her mother was surprised 
at the extraordinary devotion she had towards 
this apostle; but she ceased to wonder at the 
meritorious excess of her piety, when her daugh¬ 
ter informed her that on this day her nuptials 
with the Son of God would be celebrated in 
heaven Having attained her thirty-first year 



190 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


which she knew by inspiration she should net 
live to com plete, she made the wife of Don Gon¬ 
zalez, her great benefactor and the protector of 
her family, acquainted with the day and place 
of her death, though she was in perfect health 
when she gave them this sad intelligence. 

The same revelation which informed her of the 
day of her death, made known to her also the 
great sufferings she was to endure at the close 
of her life. Almighty God showed her their 
number, and told her that her pains would be 
so violent, that each member of her body would 
ha'. <5 its own particular torment. She knew that 
she should have to suffer the same thirst which 
tormented our blessed Saviour on the cross, and 
also a burning heat which would dry up the very 
marrow in her bones. She did not tremble gt 
the sight of this species of martyrdom; the bit¬ 
terness of the chalice which God prepared for 
her did not shake her constancy; on the con¬ 
trary she lifted up her hands and eyes to hea¬ 
ven, to adore the sovereign goodness of her 
Spouse, who wished her to partake in His cross 
and sufferings, that He might communicate tc 
her His glory and His crown. With this gene¬ 
rous disposition she entered the Chapel of our 



Sr. ROSE OF LIMA. 


191 


Lady of the Holy Rosary, to consecrate her soul 
and body to the sovereign pleasure of God. 
Having placed herself on her knees before the 
altar, she made a perfect act of resignation of 
herself to the holy ■will of God, with so great 
fervour, and so tender a sentiment of love and 
piety, that the fire of charity which inflamed her 
soul appeared in her countenance; and Don Al- 
mansa, who saw this brilliant colour on her 
cheeks, and so joyful an expression in her eyes, 
thought she must have just received some inti¬ 
mation of her death from her Divine Spouse. 

Three days before she was attacked by her 
last illness, she went to her father’s house to bid 
farewell to her dear hermitage, the faithful wit¬ 
ness of the favours she had received from Jesus 
Christ, the Blessed Virgin, her guardian angel, 
and from her dear mistress, S. Catherine of Si¬ 
enna : she passed two days therein in acts of 
thanksgiving, prayers, and tears. In this retreat 
S. Rose sang, in preparation for death, canti¬ 
cles of praise and benediction to her adorable 
Spouse, who called her to His chaste embraces. 
She then offered her respectful acknowledge¬ 
ments to S. Dominic for the care he had taken 
of her, and ftr the mercy he had shown in re- 



192 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


ceiving her into his order amongst the number 
of his daughters ; and after this she entreated, 
with tears in her eyes, that he would pardon her 
want of correspondence to her vocation, the in¬ 
fidelities which she had committed to the obser¬ 
vance of the constitutions of her order, and the 
bad example which she had given to her sisters 
as well as to seculars. Though the stifled sobs, 
which a sensible sorrow drew from her, choked 
her utterance, she could not omit to recommend 
her mother very particularly to him, begging 
him to be a father to her, and to take her under 
his protection. 

On the first of August she went to her room ‘ 
at night in perfect health; but at midnight she 
was heard crying and groaning piteously; and 
the wife of Don Gonzalez, at whose house she 
lived, having hastened t*o her with several other 
persons, found her extended, half dead, on the 
floor, cold, without pulse, motionless, and scarce¬ 
ly breathing. Alarmed at this circumstance, they 
asked her what was the matter with her, and if 
she did not wish the physician to be sent for to 
give her some relief. She blushed at this word 
“relief,” and looking at them with half closed 
eyes, she told them in a weak languishing voice, 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


193 


that there was nothing the matter with her, but 
that she felt death exercising its violence upon 
her; and as God alone, her sole Physician, knew 
her state, He alone could withdraw her from it 
by His power. They placed her again in her 
poor bed, and immediately they noticed a cold 
sweat on her face, and so violent a shivering 
seized her that she breathed with great diffi¬ 
culty ; yet she did not cease to pronounce from 
time to time the sacred Name of Jesus with such 
tender sentiments, and with so much facility, 
that it was easy to see that this Divine Name was 
the only comfort she found in her sufferings. 

The physicians came to visit her in this state, 
and having diligently examined the opposite ma¬ 
ladies with which she was attacked, they declared 
that these infirmities and sufferings were beyond 
human endurance, and that this union of incom¬ 
patible symptoms was something miraculous: in 
a word, they were of opinion that her illness was 
not natural, and that God alone caused it to exist 
in her weak body, that He might make His des¬ 
tined Spouse participate in the sufferings of His 
Passion. 

Her confessor, who did not forsake her in this 
extremity, fearing that her humility would pre. 
. ^ 17 



194 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


vent her from making known the nature and the 
great number of her sufferings, commanded her y 
in virtue of obedience, to declare them to the 
physicians in the best manner she was able, in 
order to give them at least some slight idea of 
them. In obedience to this order she told them, 
that during her life she had been afflicted with 
every one of the different diseases from which 
mankind suffer ; but that she did not understand 
that with which she was actually attacked, and 
that she could not explain to them the pains she 
endured, except by borrowing comparisons from 
the most painful sensations in nature. “ It 
seems,” she said, “ as if a ball of fire were forced 
into my temples; that it descends to my feet, 
and that it passes across from my left side to my 
right, causing an insupportable heat. I feel,” 
continued she, “ as if my heart were lacerated 
by a burning dagger, and the invisible Hand 
which guides it pierces me sometimes from head 
to foot, and then, by crossing from side to side, 
engraves the figure of a cross in my body with 
this instrument, which burns me with the great¬ 
est violence to which fire can attain. I suffer,” 
she added, “such sharp pains in the bowels, that 
it seems as if each moment they were being torn 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


195 


out with burning pincers, and my head burns as 
if heate.l coals, just taken from a flaming fur¬ 
nace, were placed upon it. In fact, I believe 
that when I die, my hones will be found reduced 
to ashes, and the marrow dried up, from the ef¬ 
fects of the burning heat which I endure.” 

At this candid declaration the physicians 
looked at each other in astonishment at hearing 
things so uncommon; and being more and more 
confirmed in their first opinion by the recital of 
these dreadful pains, they concluded that her 
malady was supernatural, and that Almighty 
God was the true principle of it. Hose, hearing 
the result of their consultation, ingenuously 
avowed to her confessor that they were not 
mistaken in their judgment, and therefore she 
needed nothing but love and patience to execute 
the designs of God over her, who wished her to 
partake in Ilis pains and sufferings. When the 
physicians had retired, she begged that she 
might be left alone for some days, and that no 
one would come to speak to her, that she might 
be ablp to converse more at liberty with Jesus 
Christ her dear Spouse, with whom she felt her¬ 
self fixed to the cross. 

On the sixth day of the same month she as- 



196 


ST. KOSE of lima. 


cended with her Beloved, not to Thabor to par¬ 
take of the glory of His Transfiguration, but to 
Calvary, to bear a part in His excessive suffer¬ 
ings ; for on this day, her left side was attacked 
by paralysis, and two days after she was seized 
at the same time with pleurisy, asthma, sciatica, 
gout, colic, and fever, as if these cruel diseases 
had united their different pains to make her suf¬ 
fer one which included them all; for she endured 
inconceivable torments. We may say that this 
happened by the special dispensation of Provi¬ 
dence, who permitted her to be attacked by all 
these diseases at once, that she might suffer on 
her bed from the hands of her Divine Spouse, a 
martyrdom as meritorious to her, as that which 
the saints endured on wheels and racks from 
their executioners. 

She preserved always an admirable tranquil¬ 
lity of mind in the midst of her pains; she was 
so calm in the paroxysms of her fever, in the 
shooting pains of sciatica, and the sharp attacks 
of colic, that she appeared insensible, or as if 
her body were of iron, incapable of pain or 
change. Though she suffered so much, she en¬ 
treated her Divine Spouse not to diminish her 
pains; on the contriry she begged Him, with all 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA, 


197 


the affection of her heart, to increase them, in 
order to punish her rigorously for the crimes 
of which she believed herself guilty in the sight 
of His Divine Majesty. God had compassion 
on His servant; He was moved by her tears and 
groans, and He miraculously preserved her mind 
sound and entire till her last breath, amidst the 
vapours which the burning heat of her inside sent 
to her brain, and which must have caused her to 
fall into delirium if He had not preserved her 
from .it by His mercy; and, by a further favour, 
granted her the use of her tongue, to make 
known her thoughts till she died. We have the 
greater reason to believe that the preservation 
of her s-enses was an effect of the Omnipotence 
of God, as she was often seen, during this last 
illness, as it were out of herself, without any use 
of her exterior senses, or in raptures in which 
her soul seemed to leave her body to unite it¬ 
self more closely to God. 

She suffered from thirst, which was the more 
painful, as it "was caused by the heat and disor¬ 
der of her inside. She endured it till death, 
without swallowing a drop of water to quench 
it, for the physicians had forbidden her to drink, 
preferring to deprive herself of this relief, rather 
17 * 



198 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


than of the consolation of dying with a burning 
thirst: after the example of her Divine Spouse, 
she asked only for gall and vinegar to increase 
her suffering. 

During her illness she usually confessed her 
sins every day ; and to dispose herself better for 
death, she made a general confession of her 
whole life, with such marks of deep contrition, 
that her sighs and groans were heard in the room 
adjoining. On the third day before her death, 
she received the Holy Viaticum and Extreme 
(Jnction, with interior dispositions suited to the 
excellence of these two sacraments, the graces 
of which were, in some manner, to put the seal 
to the merits which she had acquired by the prac¬ 
tice of all the virtues. It was noticed when the 
Blessed Sacrament was brought to her, that she 
changed colour ; her face became shining and in¬ 
flamed ; and amidst the transports of joy which 
filled her, she fell into an ecstacy; and after re¬ 
ceiving this Bread of angels, which was to fortify 
her to pass from earth to heaven, she remained 
motionless and totally absorbed in God. In re¬ 
ceiving Extreme Unction she disposed her limbs 
in such a manner, that those who had seen hei 
before quite incapable of moving them, knew 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


199 


that this holy oil prepared her rather for the 
glory of her triumph, than for those fearful in¬ 
visible combats to which the agonizing are ex¬ 
posed ; for she was assured of her salvation, and 
Almighty God had revealed to her that her soul, 
on leaving her body, would go straight to hea¬ 
ven, without passing through the flames of pur¬ 
gatory. 

She often declared, in an audible voice, that 
she was a Christian, and desired to die in the 
faith of the Church, and that she was a daugh¬ 
ter of the great S. Dominic. To give proof of 
this, she kissed her scapular respectfully, and 
would have it always laid upon her in her sick¬ 
ness. Finally^ to imitate the charity of the Son 
of God, she prayed with all her heart for those 
who had offended her in word or deed, begging 
Him to load them with His graces, and to show 
them the same mercy which she hoped to expe¬ 
rience from His goodness; and holding a little 
crucifix in her hand, she could not satisfy her¬ 
self with kissing it, and repeating tenderly, 
“Father, forgive them/’ After having so per¬ 
fectly copied His love, she had only to imitate 
His humility before her death: for this purpose 
she begged that the servants of the house might 



200 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


be sent for; and though she had never disobliged 
one of them in any manner, she begged their 
pardon with tears in her eyes. She showed a 
sensible grief that she had been so great a bur¬ 
den to her mother, and that she should give her 
yet a great deal of trouble during the two days 
she had still to live. She thanked Don Gon¬ 
zalez very gratefully for his goodness to her, 
telling him that he would soon be freed from 
this miserable sinner, who had given so much 
uneasiness and trouble to his whole family. 
There was not a person who did not shed tears 
at these words, and who did not admire the pro¬ 
digious humility of this spouse of Jesus Christ, 
who had so profound a contempt for herself, 
while every one considered her as a Saint. 

Don Gonzalez feared that some dispute might 
arise between the curate of her parish and the 
religious of S. Dominic, concerning the right 
of possessing S. Rose’s body after death, each 
having a claim to keep it in their church, the 
one as his parishioner, for she had died in a house 
which came under his jurisdiction; the others as 
their sister, from her being a religious of their 
order. To avoid this dispute, he thought it would 
be advisable that she slioi Id ask the prior to have 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


201 


the charity to give her burial amongst them, as 
to one of their sisters, by manner cf supplica¬ 
tion, rather than by will, for fear she might be¬ 
come aware of the eagerness which the convent 
and parish would show to possess her body. She 
had no difficulty in following this judicious ad¬ 
vice, for she knew it was the custom for religious 
of the third order of S. Dominic to be buried in 
the church of his children ; and fearing that this 
favour might be refused to her, owing to the 
disedification she thought she had given, she 
begged them with many entreaties to grant her 
this consolation. 

A short time before her death, she was con¬ 
tinually in raptures and ecstasies, in which she 
had a foretaste of the ineffable sweetness she 
would possess in heaven for all eternity. This 
violent application of the mind fatigued her 
weak body very much, and gradually disposed 
it to die; but her soul acquiring new strength 
at the approach of the blessed moment which 
was to unite her forever to her Spouse, she felt a 
joy which was visible in her eyes and in her 
words. Two hours before she expired, coming 
to herself from a long ecstasy, she turned to Fa¬ 
ther Francis Nieto, and said to him in confi- 



202 


SI. ROSE OF LIMA. 


dence, “ 0 father, what great things I could tell 
you of the pleasures and abundant consolations 
which God will bestow upon His saints for all 
eternity! I go with inconceivable satisfaction 
to contemplate the adorable Face of God, whom 
I ha/e all my life desired to possess.” 

She then thanked her parents, those who had 
nursed her in her illness, and particularly Don 
Gonzalez and his wife, for all the kindness and 
charity they had shown her. She exhorted their 
daughters with all the strength that remained 
to her, and with words of fire, to the love of God 
and the practice of virtue ; after this, she spoke 
privately with her two brothers, and conjured 
them to lead good lives, and to honour and as¬ 
sist their good mother. 

Towards midnight she heard a mysterious 
noise, which announced to her the coming of 
her Divine Spouse; she received it with joy; 
and seeing herself on the point of expiring, she 
requested her brother to remove the bolster from 
beneath her head, and to place pieces of wood 
in its stead. She thanked him for this act of 
kindness, and placed her head upon them; and 
as if she had only waited for these pieces of 
wood to die upon a sort of cross, she snid twice, 



ST. HOSE OF LIMA. 


203 


“ Jesus, be with me! Jesus, be with me!” and 
immediately afterwards her pure soul quitted 
her mortal body, and took its flight into the 
bosom of God, to take possession of that hea¬ 
venly inheritance prepared for it from all eter¬ 
nity. Her death took place on the 24th August, 
the feast of S. Bartholomew, in the year 1617, 
her age being thirty-one years and five months. 

The same night Aloysia de Serrano had a re¬ 
velation of her death; and as S. Bose and she 
had promised one another, that the one who died 
first would make it known to the other, S. Rose 
kept her word and informed her of her death 
and of the happiness she enjoyed. 


CHAPTER XX. 

OF THE HONOUR WHICH S. ROSE RECEIVED AFTER * 
DEATH, AND OF THE TRANSLATION OF HER BODY 
WHICH TOOK PLACE SOME TIME AFTERWARDS. 

The death of the just is attended with circum¬ 
stances which render it sweet and agreeable: it 
is not only precious in the sight of God, as their 
introduction to a throne of which they take pos- 



204 


ST. ROSE OS LIMA. 


session as conquerors, laden with the glorious 
spoils they have taken from the world, the flesh 
and the devil: it is even precious in the sight 
of men, when they remark on the countenances 
of the illustrious dead the respect which death 
pays to their ashes, freeing them from that hide¬ 
ous deformity which gives us a sort of horror 
even for those persons who were the most be¬ 
loved by us. The honours which are paid to 
them after death, make us regard it rather as a 
triumph than as a shameful defeat, and we can 
scarcely believe that they have paid this indis¬ 
pensable debt of nature, since their virtue makes 
them live in the esteem of men, while their bo¬ 
dies are lifeless and without motion. In this 
sense S. Gregory Nazianzen calls the generous 
Machabees the rivals of a precious death, since 
they sought it covered with blood and dust in 
the midst of combats, as a source of life and 
‘glory which would render them immortal in the 
memory of men. Death appeared so lovely on 
the countenance of S. Rose, that those who re¬ 
marked the freshness of her complexion and the 
redness of her lips, which were separated so as 
to form a pleasing smile, doubted for a long time 
whether her soul had quitted her body; for they 




ST. KOSK OF LIMA. 


205 


saw sc much brightness in her eyes, an t such 
apparent marks of life, that they could not be 
satisfied till they had placed a mirror before her 
mouth, and had perceived that she did not in 
the least tarnish its lustre by her breath; then 
they knew that she was dead. 

In place of the tears and groans that would 
naturally have been expected from the nineteen 
persons who were present at her death, and who « 
had been very dear to her, either by the alliance 
of blood or by the bands of a close friendship, 
so great a joy was visible on their countenances, 
that the house seemed more like the scene of a 
wedding than a place of tears and mourning. A 
person who was present at her death, saw a num¬ 
ber of angels around her bed during her agony, 
and she deposed upon oath, that God had re¬ 
vealed to her several days before the death of 
S. Rose, that her passage from earth to heaven 
would be glorious, and her tomb magnificent; 
and He had expressly forbidden the use of black 
drapery which is a sign of sadness; and He de¬ 
sired that they should employ white hangings, as 
being much more suitable to our Saint’s glorious 
triumph. In fact she was placed under ground 
with as much pomp as would be granted to a 
18 



206 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


heroine, who, during life, had performed a mul¬ 
titude of great actions; for scarcely had the 
day-light appeared, befire a prodigious crowd 
of people, of all ranks, came to the door of 
the house of Don Gonzalez, in which she had 
breathed her last; and this surprised the people 
of the house extremely, for they could not ima¬ 
gine how they had heard of her death, since no 
# one had gone out afterwards. The crowd was 
so great that it did not merely comprise the 
heads of families: poor, rich, gentlemen, mer¬ 
chants, priests, religious, seculars, Spaniards, 
and native Indians entered in confusion and 
surrounded the body of our Saint. Some pressed 
her feet with profound sentiments of respect and 
devotion; others cut off some piece of her dress. 
They had taken care to close her eyes; but it 
was impossible to keep them in this position, for 
they reopened immediately, as if our Saint took 
pleasure in looking on the inhabitants of Lima, 
who had had such esteem and veneration for her. 

The news of her death having spread itself 
over the town and neighbourhood, so many peo¬ 
ple came, that they filled not only the house in 
which her body was laid out, but the street also; 
and the viceroy was obliged to send soldiers to 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


207 


make a passage through the crowd in order to 
carry her to the church; and the multitude was 
so great in the streets through which they had 
to pass, that they were several hours without be¬ 
ing able to advance. The archbishop of Lima, 
who had quitted his palace to convey the body, 
with his clergy, not being able to reach the house 
of Don Gonzalez, went to wait for the convoy at 
the church of the Dominicans, which was about 
a thousand paces distant. All the religious com¬ 
munities, and all the confraternities of the town, 
came to join in honouring her; and though the 
chapter of the metropolitan church does not usu¬ 
ally attend on these occasions, except for the 
archbishop’s funeral, it was nevertheless present, 
to increase the splendour of this ceremony. The 
courts showed her the same honours as they usu¬ 
ally paid only to the viceroys of the country. 

The streets through which the body of S. Rose 
passed on its way to the Convent of S. Dominic 
were too narrow, which obliged a great number 
of illustrious ladies and virtuous widows to place 
themselves at windows, that they might have the 
satisfaction of seeing once more, this virginal 
body, which had been the living temple of the 
Holy Ghost during life. The poorer people 



205 


3T. ROSE OF LIMA. 


mounted on the roofs to satisfy their pious cu 
riosity; in a word, all the town was present at 
her funeral, every one wishing to show by thig 
last mark of respect, the esteem they had felt 
for our Saint during her life. The gentlemen 
of the chapter carried the body a considerable 
distance, but the eagerness of the principal peo¬ 
ple in the town to partake in this honour, made 
them change bearers in every street; the most 
illustrious amongst the senators succeeded the 
chapter; after them the superiors of all the mo¬ 
nasteries carried her one after another. Every¬ 
where the people were heard crying out, that 
Rose was a Saint in heaven; and not being satis¬ 
fied with this vocal testimony, they tried to ob¬ 
tain some portion of her relics; and if the sol¬ 
diers had not opposed their devotion, they would 
certainly have cut off all her clothes, and per¬ 
haps two or three fingers. 

The body being at the church door, certain 
signs of joy were remarked on her face; and 
the statue of our Blessed Lady which was in the 
Chapel of the Rosary sent forth rays of light, 
which every one took for a miraculous indica¬ 
tion of the pleasure she had in again seeing our 
Saint, who had honoured her with so much *eve 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


209 


and tenderness. Every one ran to see this pro¬ 
digy ; they observed with astonishment the light 
which issued from the countenance of this holy 
image; and there were some who declared that 
they saw drops of perspiration distilling from it. 
The Father Prior of the Convent of S. Dominic 
appointed the most ancient among his religious 
to surround this holy body, as much to prevent 
the pious thefts of the people, as to bring near 
the blind, the lame, the deaf and dumb, and a 
great number of sick people, whom the hope of 
obtaining a cure through the merits of S. Rose 
had attracted; and they were not disappointed 
in their expectation, as we shall shortly see. 

The guard of the viceroy and the soldiers of the 
garrison having made the people retire, they be¬ 
gan to prepare for the interment; but so great 
a tumult was raised, that they were obliged to 
postpone the ceremony; and unless they had 
given a promise to the people to delay it, not one 
would have gone home. This promise having 
caused those who were in the church to disperse, 
so great a number of others entered, that the 
archbishop, seeing that it w T ould be impossible to 
bury her, made a sign to the religious to carry 
the corpse i ito the sacristy. As these fathers 
18 * 



210 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


thought it was not very safe there, they took it 
away, and placed it in the Chapd of the Novice 
ship, as the most proper place, and the most re¬ 
tired part of the convent, to which seculars have 
no access. The archbishop being now at liberty 
to pay his respects to this virtuous servant of 
God, placed himself devoutly on his knees be¬ 
fore the corpse to kiss her hand, and he found 
the fingers as pliable and supple as when she was 
alive. 

The next day, as soon as the father sacristan 
had opened the church doors, and the religious 
had placed our Saint’s body in the nave, an im¬ 
mense crowd of people entered, not only from 
the town, but some from six or seven leagues’ 
distance from Lima, to be present at her inter¬ 
ment. In spite of all the efforts of the soldiers 
and the viceroy’s guard, they could not keep the 
people back; they all rushed forward violently; 
some pushed others to enable them to touch this 
holy body with garments for the sick, with rosa¬ 
ries, prayer-books or medals; never was there 
witnessed such a scene of confusion; cripples 
begged to be allowed to pass that they might be 
cured by touching her relics; children were 
lifted from hand to hand over the heads of the> 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


211 


people, to kiss her clothes; with all their precau¬ 
tions it was not possible to prevent them from 
cutting her habit, her veil, and her gimp, which 
were obliged to be changed six times. The 
church resounded with the voicet of those who 
were present, imploring her intercession as a 
Saint reigning with God. The noise was so great, 
that they were obliged to give a signal to the 
choir by a bell, whenever it was necessary to an¬ 
swer the bishop of Guatimala, who was celebra¬ 
ting mass; and it would never have been finished, 
if the chanters had not left their places to be 
nearer the altar, that they might be able to hear. 
This illustrious prelate having descended from 
his throne to approach the coffin, and proceed 
to the ceremony of interment, saw himself sur¬ 
rounded by a quantity of people, who redoubled 
their cries and groans; and having given by 
this means a signal to those who were at a greater 
distance, that the body of S. Rose was going to 
be put into the ground, a more numerous troop 
joined them ; and fearing some sedition, or that 
the people would try to seize by force some part 
of her dress, or of her body, the officials put off 
their violent devotion, by making the people a 
second promise tc defer the burial till the next 



212 


ST BO£E OF LIMA. 


day. They willingly believed this, as tneie was 
no appearance of corruption in the body from 
the heat; for so much beauty was remarked in 
her countenance, so agreeable an odotir was per¬ 
ceived, that every one believed that ±Llmi£htv 
God was renewing in the person of S. Rose the 
miracle He had so often worked in favour of His 
saints, by preserving her body from corruption; 
they thought the body would be exposed for se¬ 
veral days to satisfy the people, who were never 
satiated with seeing her; for during thirty-six 
hours no change had appeared in her, either in 
her complexion, or the brightness of her eyes, 
though the dampness of the place, and the 
heated breath of the people who had filled the 
church from morning till night, would have been 
sufficient to effect some alteration in her coun¬ 
tenance. 

Towards noon the doors of the church were 
closed, and without waiting for the return of the 
people, who were troublesome even by their piety, 
they placed the body of S. Rose in a coffin, made 
of cedar wood, and buried it in the Chapel of the 
Religious. When the ceremony was completed, 
the doors were opened to a crowd of people, 
whose impatience mvde them furious, and ready 



ST. ROSE OP LTV A. 


213 


to break them open with violence. T >VTien they 
?aw that they had been deceived, they ran to the 
grave, and having watered it with their tears, 
they carried home some of the earth through de¬ 
votion. to make use of it as a sovereign remedy 
in their diseases, hoping to be delivered from 
them by the intercession of this happy Spouse 
of Jesus Christ. After her death her father’s 
house was every day snrronnded by the carriages 
of the first persons in the city, who wished to see 
the hermitage which S. Hose had sanctified by 
her sighs and rigorous penances, and in which 
she had passed the greatest part of her life, se¬ 
parated from the commerce of men, bat singu¬ 
larly favoured by God. 

The frequent miracles which took place in 
Lima and the whole kingdom of Peru, made her 
tomb so famous, that the people thought they had 
not paid sufiieient honour to her memory; and 
it was resolved in the council of state, that a ser¬ 
vice should be performed for her with greater 
pomp and magnificence than at first. The arch¬ 
bishop and the viceroy had some little difficulty 
in firin g tk* dav. that rhev might both be able 
tc be present: at last they chose the 4th of Sep¬ 
tember, without refiecting that it was consecra- 



214 


SI. ROSE OF LIMA. 


ted to honour S. Rose of Viterbo, in Italy. Tt& 
people all came to the church on the appointed 
day, and while the archbishop, the clergy, and 
the religious communities recommended aloud 
the soul of S. Rose to God, the people begged 
her prayers by tears and groans as a great ser¬ 
vant of God, the fame of whose sanctity had al¬ 
ready spread over all the towns and villages of 
Peru. The famous town of Pontozzi, which is 
about three hundred leagues from Lima, was one 
of the first to show its respect for the memory 
of S. Rose, by the ringing of bells, the thunder 
of artillery, and by placing a great number of 
lights at the windows. The other towns of Peru 
vied with each other in showing their confidence 
in our Saint by the prayers they offered up at 
her tomb. 

The miracles which Almighty God worked 
there every day to honour her, wdio, during life, 
had immolated herself entirely to His service, 
drew thither a number of persons from all parts, 
some to return thanks for the health which they 
had received from heaven by her intercession, 
others to implore her suffrages with God to be 
cured of their infirmities. This fervour never re¬ 
laxed, as is usually the case with these popular 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


215 


devotnns which begin warmly, but insensibly di¬ 
minish in their progress, till in time they are 
quite extinguished. On the contrary, it increased 
so much by the quantity of miracles which were 
witnessed at her tomb, that almost all the orders 
of the city, ecclesiastical or secular, with the 
principal officers of the council and police, con¬ 
cluded, that the body of S. Rose being the pre¬ 
cious treasure with which God had enriched the 
town of Lima, it ought to be made public, and 
withdrawn from the cloister where it had been 
buried, to be placed in an honourable position 
in their church, to satisfy the devotion of the 
people. The archbishop joyfully consented; 
and having given the necessary orders for this 
august ceremony, he took from the earth the 
body of S. Rose on the 27th of February, in the 
year 1619, in presence of all the orders of the 
town, of the clergy, the nobility, and the peo¬ 
ple. As soon as the grave was opened, an agree¬ 
able odour issued from it, which appeared mira¬ 
culous to this numerous assemblage; and they 
redoubled their joy and respect when they saw 
this holy body as entire, and the complexion as 
fresh, as when it was put into the coffin. It was 
transported from the cloister of the religious into 




216 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


their church, with all the pomp and magnificence 
that this great servant of God merited, and that 
could be imagined by the people to show their 
respect and affection. Father Louis Bilboa, a 
religious of the order, a doctor in theology, and 
a very celebrated preacher, who had long been 
her confessor, pronounced her panegyric, and ex¬ 
tolled, with great eloquence, the admirable vir¬ 
tues of our Saint. When her eulogium was 
finished, she was carried to a little vault on the 
right side of the high altar; but as the crowd 
continually hastened thither, as to a second ark, 
to implore assistance, and persons of all ranks 
and ages were seen praying there, and offering 
presents, and leaving their sticks and crutches 
as glorious trophies of their gratitude for having 
been cured by her intercession, they were obli¬ 
ged, out of reverence to the adorable Sacrament, 
to remove these precious relics to the Chapel of 
S. Catherine of Sienna, where the people could 
satisfy their devotion more conveniently, and 
without fear of irreverence. 

In the year 1630, on the 17th of May, an 
Apostolic Brief was received at Lima, by which 
the Sacred Congregation of Rites established a 
tribunal, and allowed the Father Inquisitors to 



ST. ROSE OF I MA. 


217 


examine canonically into the life, actions, and 
miracles of the servant of God, Sister Rose of 
S. Mary, religious of the third order of S. Domi¬ 
nic. Two years were employed in hearing, ju¬ 
dicially, a hundred and eighty persons, who 
presented themselves, and deposed what they 
had seen. Nothing more remained to terminate 
the proceedings but to visit the relics. They 
went to her tomb, and having opened it fifteen 
years after her death, they found her bones en¬ 
tire, covered with dry flesh, which exhaled a 
delightful odour like that of roses; from thence 
they went to the chapter, where she had been at 
first interred, to see the grave from which the 
people took earth every day, to which God had 
communicated virtue to cure fever and other dis¬ 
eases. They found it quite full, with the excep¬ 
tion of about five pounds’ weight of soil, though 
several bushels had been carried away during 
these fifteen years. 

In 1640, the Procurator General of the Order 
of Friar Preachers hearing of the extraordinary 
devotion of the people, and the public veneration 
shown to the relics of this Spouse of Jesus Christ, 
wrote to the fathers of the Convent at Lima, tell¬ 
ing them to prevent this exterior honour, for feai 
19 



218 


ST, ROSE OF LIMA. 


of incurring the censures which Pope Urban the 
VTIIth had fulminated in 1634 against those 
who should publicly stow marks of veneration 
before the tomb of those who had died in the 
odour of sanctity, before the Holy See had de¬ 
clared them blessed. In consequence of this or¬ 
der, they resolved to abolish the honour which 
was shown in their church to S. Rose. As soon 
as this resolution was known in the town, a num¬ 
ber of people ran tumultuously to the church, 
where they loudly complained of this proceed¬ 
ing ; and as a rumour was spread that the body 
of S. Rose had been secretly taken away to be 
transported from Lima into Spain, the religious 
were in danger of being murdered, their lives 
were threatened, and whatever they could say 
to the people to undeceive them had no effect, 
for they were not at first capable of hearing 
their excuses, or understanding their innocence; 
but their fury having subsided a little, they were 
told that they had been misinformed; that the 
body of S. Rose was still in the chapel of S. Ca¬ 
therine of Sienna, and that what was done was 
in obedience to the commands of the sovereign 
Pontiff, and to merit greater honours for this 
servant of Jesus Christ i 1 a more canonical man- 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


219 


ner, that they might proceed to her Beatification 
in the forms prescribed by the Church, which 
they must obey in order to obtain the favour 
which all the people requested for their fellow- 
fitizen. 


CHAPTER XXL 

OF THE REVELATIONS WHICH SEVERAL PERSONS HAD 
OF THE GLORY OF S. ROSE. 

There is no Saint in heaven, of whom we may 
net say what S. Bernard said in pronouncing the 
eulogium of S. Victor the martyr, namely, that 
he instructed us by his example, and employed 
his credit with Almighty God for our advantage; 
for they were not raised to this eminent sanctity 
solely for their own perfection, but that the ex¬ 
ample of their virtues might be an inducement 
to others to practise the same. And as men 
cannot imitate their actions, nor call upon them 
in their necessities, unless they are informed of 
their happiness, God makes known their merits 
by extraordinary means, such as visions and ap¬ 
paritions, that being persuaded of the excellent 




220 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


of their state, they may aspire to their sanctity* 
and use their intercession to obtain this grace 
and relief in their afflictions of soul or body. 

By these miraculous means God revealed to 
many persons the immortal glory of S. Rose, 
and He made use of her prayers to soften the 
hearts of a great number of sinners, whose un¬ 
happy obstinacy had hitherto given little hopes 
of their salvation. But before we relate these 
particular circumstances, we are glad to be able 
to assure the reader, that nothing is advanced 
which has not been taken from the authentic 
examinations which were made of the virtues, 
graces, and miracles of our Saint. As Aloysia 
de Serano, who has been mentioned before, was 
united with our Saint by an intimate friendship, 
she was the first to whom God made known the 
glory which she possessed. One day when she 
was absorbed in God, she saw the Blessed Vir¬ 
gin before a magnificent throne, holding a rich 
and bright crown in her hand to place it on the 
head of some one for whom she seemed to be 
waiting: on the other side she beheld a multi¬ 
tude of virgins encircling S. Rose, and bringing 
her joyfully to the feet of the Mother of God. 
All these illustrious virgins were crowned, and 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


223 


carried palms in their hands; Rcse alone was 
without a crown, and had only a palm; but a 
moment after she saw the Blessed Virgin place 
upon her head the brilliant crown she had held 
in her hand. A person of the greatest experience 
in mystical theology confessed to Don Gonzalez, 
his intimate friend, and gave testimony by words 
and writing before the apostolical commissaries, 
that S. Bose had appeared to him twenty-two 
times during the three weeks after her death, 
quite surrounded with glory. 

The physician Don Juan de Castile, so well 
known for his virtue, made oath before the same 
commissioners, that S. Bose had appeared to him 
several times, fifteen years after her death, en¬ 
vironed with an extraordinary light, and that he 
saw her in the midst of this light, clothed in her 
habit of religion, but so majestic and glorious, 
that he could not find words to explain her 
splendor; she held a lily in her right hand, the 
emblem of her virginity; and during these vi¬ 
sions she spoke of the happiness of the saints in 
so sublime a manner, that he could not find 
terms to express their glory. In the last examina¬ 
tion made at Lima, in 1631, he deposed on oath, 
that for six months, whenever he made his medi 
19* 



222 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


tion, either by clay or night, he had been allowed 
to see the royal magnificence with which Al¬ 
mighty God rewarded the merits of S. Rose, by 
means of an angel whom she sent from heaven to 
invite him to witness this delightful spectacle. 

That which happened to Diego Hyacinthe 
Paceco, a Spaniard is very wonderful. He was 
a poor man, who earned his bread at Lima by 
copying writings for lawyers; and Diego Mo¬ 
rales, a notary in S. Rose’s cause, having pressed 
him to engross two thousand rolls of writings 
concerning the proceedings and other authentic 
pieces concerning the examinations which had • 
been made of the life and miracles of S. Rose, he 
despaired of being able to finish them on account 
of the shortness of the time given him, and also 
partly because his fingers were in some degree 
benumbed, and the nerves of his hand entirely 
relaxed. During the night S. Rose appeared to 
him; she approached him, and taking his arm 
she pressed it violently; the pain having 
awakened him, he thought it w T as a dream; but 
finding himself perfectly cured, he perceived that 
it was a reality, and that our Saint had really ap¬ 
peared to him and cured his hand, that he might 
finish what he had begun. 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


223 


She appeared to several other persons after 
her death, surrounded with odoriferous roses, in 
the delicious garden of her Divine Spouse, par¬ 
ticularly to a good widow, who lived at Lima in 
the odour cf sanctity. One day when she was 
enraptured to see our Saint amidst a great mul¬ 
titude of angels and saints, Rose said to her, 
“ Mother, this state of glory is only acquired by 
generous efforts ; much labour is necessary ; for 
the recompense with which God crowns our trials 
is exceedingly great: you see how Ilis mercy 
rewards abundantly, and even beyond my hopes, 
the pains I suffered, and the few good actions I 
performed while on earth.” 

As she was very charitable towards the inha¬ 
bitants of Lima during her life, she testified to 
them, by several apparitions, that she felt the 
same interest for them now she was in heaven; 
for this widow, when recommending the town 
to her prayers one day, was ravished into an 
ecstasy, and in her rapture saw S. Rose, who, 
consoling her, said, “ Mother, I will do what 
you ask me, and God has promised to grant me 
for these dear people whatever regards their sal¬ 
vation ; I remember perfectly those things which 
have been recommended td my intercession, and 



224 


ST. ROSE CF LIMA. 


I will vot fail to ask for them.” This ;s con¬ 
formable to what sister Catherine of S. Mary 
testified before the commissioners, to the ef¬ 
fect that S. Rose had appeared twice to her 
after her death. On the first occasion, our Saint 
encouraged her in the extraordinary pains 
which tormented her in her afflictions; and the 
second time, she saw S. Rose in the air above 
her sepulchre supplicating, on her knees, the 
Majesty of God for the town of Lima. The cure 
of Father Augustin de Vega, a celebrated reli¬ 
gious of the Order of Friar Preachers, and Pro¬ 
vincial of the kingdom of Peru, is very remark¬ 
able. His life was despaired of, the physicians 
had given him up, they had ceased to give him 
remedies, for every one was of opinion that his 
illness was incurable, and that he would never 
recover. S. Rose appeared, during the night in 
which his death was expected, to Don Christo- 
phe de Ortega, and desired him to go very early 
the next morning to the provincial, at the con¬ 
vent of his order in Lima, and to assure him 
from her that he would recover from this sick¬ 
ness, and that Almighty God had chosen him 
for a bishop that he might labour in the service 
of the Church, and employ the great talents 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


225 


which He had given him. He went, sjoke to 
tfhis dying priest, made known to him what had 
happened during the night, and delivered the 
message with which S. Rose had entrusted him ; 
and from this time the father began to improve, 
and some time after he was elected bishop of 
Paraguay, and became one of the most celebrated 
and learned prelates who have governed the 
Church of Jesus Christ in the New World. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

OF THE MIRACLES WHICH ALMIGHTY GOD WORKED 
THROUGH THE MERITS OF S. ROSE. 

As miracles belong to the number of those 
gratuitous graces which God grants rather for 
the good of others, than for the particular ad¬ 
vantage of the person by whom He 'works them, 
they are not the essential marks of sanctity; for 
S. John the Baptist, the greatest among the chil¬ 
dren of men, never performed any, according to 
the testimony of Jesus Christ himself; still, as 
they are a subject of astonishment to the people, 
and as they oblige them to Acknowledge a Sove- 




226 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


reign P )wer which has absolute dominion over 
nature, the Son of God has made use of them to 
establish religion in every part of the world, and 
to confirm its excellence and truth, from which 
S. Augustine terms them “ the seeds of faith.” 

We need not then be surprised if Almighty 
God has worked so many miracles through S. 
Rose, a nun of the third order of S. Dominic, in 
the New World, where the faith was only just 
beginning to spring up; for they were necessary 
to confirm the newly converted and to strength¬ 
en them in the faith. For this reason, though 
the life of S. Rose was a continual and very fa¬ 
mous miracle, God also worked, through her 
means, a great number of prodigies for the sal¬ 
vation of several persons. We do not undertake 
to relate them all; the number is so great that a 
volume might be composed of them; w’e will 
content ourselves with noticing the most re¬ 
markable. 


1 . 

OF THE CONVERSIONS WHICH THE PRAYERS OF 
ST. ROSE OBTAINED. 

As the conversion of sinners from crime to in* 
nocenoe, and from sin to grace, is a most noble 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


227 


effect of the charity of the Saints, and a more 
glorious mark of their power with Almighty 
God, than the restoring diseased and languish¬ 
ing bodies to health, we may say that God has 
given glorious proofs of the sanctity of His 
Spouse ; for a number of hardened sinners, who 
had been for years in the habit of sin, were so 
struck with compunction and sorrow for having 
offended God at the time in which they touched 
the body of S. Rose, or even beheld it exposed 
in the church, that Father Nicholas de Aguero, 
of the Order of Friar Preachers, then Vicar 
General of Peru, testifies, in his circular letter 
of the 1st of September, 1617, that many openly 
confessed their crimes and disorders, and gave 
proof, by the abundance of their tears and the 
violence of their sobs, that they were truly con¬ 
verted. It was remarked, that some young li¬ 
bertines who came to the church merely to gaze 
upon the ravishing beauty of this chaste Spouse 
of Jesus Christ, whom they had not been able to 
look upon attentively during life, returned home 
penetrated with great contrition, and resolved to 
change their lives. 

Some days after S. Rose’s death, several per¬ 
sons went to visit Mary de l’OL’ve, her mother, 



228 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


and bestowed plentiful alms upon her, in grati¬ 
tude for the graces which they said they had re¬ 
ceived from God through the merits of her holy 
daughter, who had, undoubtedly, obtained their 
conversion from a state of sin in which they had 
long been. 

For several years there had appeared little 
hopes of the conversion of a man who lived more 
like an atheist than a Christian, and whose scan¬ 
dalous life was a tissue of all sorts of crimes and 
disorders. He had never made a good confession 
in his life, and those who knew his terrible ob¬ 
stinacy looked upon him as lost, for he would 
not hear a word of doing penance. A pious per¬ 
son who was sensibly touched at the deplorable 
loss of a soul for which Jesus Christ had shed 
His precious blood, addressed herself to S, Rose 
a few days after her death, and entreated her 
to obtain the conversion of this poor soul. Her 
power with Almighty God was soon manifested; 
for this man awoke from the lethargy of sin, ana 
the fear of God softening the hardness of his 
heart, he was converted, and during the rest of 
his life he had as great a horror of sin as he had 
before had pleasure in committing it. This con¬ 
version was much talked of, and greatly aug- 



ST. ROSE 05 LIMA. 


22? 


merited the respect which was shown to the me¬ 
rits of S Rose. 

He was not the only person who experienced 
the favorable effects of her intercession ; it is 
mentioned in the depositions which were taken 
on the 11th January, 1617, before the apostoli¬ 
cal commissioners, that the number of persons 
who were converted to God, and who did pen¬ 
ance for their past disorders, through S. Rose’s 
intercession, was so great in Lima, and the whole 
kingdom of Peru, that a short time after her 
death so many disciplines, iron chains, hair 
shirts, &c., were sold, that the stock of the mer¬ 
chants was exhausted. Father Antonio de la 
Vega Louysa, the Jesuit, remarks this circum¬ 
stance particularly; for according to the com¬ 
mon opinion of docters, these conversions are 
the most certain marks of the sanctity of those 
who obtain them. The most, infamous public 
sinners were seen, with astonishment, to quit 
their sinful habits, and embrace the sweet yoke 
of chastity, to live for God alone in the practice 
of rigorous penance, and to apply themselves 
solely to the important affair of their salvation, 
seeing in the penitential and crucified life of S. 
Rose the stringent obligation we are under of 
20 



230 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


attending to it. The priests declared, that since 
S. Rose’s entrance into heaven there had been 
a complete change of manners in Peru, and they 
knew by the numerous conversions they every 
day witnessed, that she was powerfully soliciting 
the salvation of her countrymen. Worldly wo¬ 
men renounced their vanity, and left off wearing 
those rich garments which only serve to nourish 
pride and ambition, to clothe themselves in the 
garb of modesty. Religious persons, animated 
by the example of this innocent penitent, renewed 
their first fervor so courageously, that nothing 
was heard in cloisters but the sound of disci¬ 
plines, which they took to imitate her mortifica¬ 
tion. Confessors were besieged in their tribu¬ 
nals by a great number of persons, who testified 
by their tears and groans the sensible sorrow 
which they felt for having offended God. This 
wonderful change caused a man of rank to give 
testimony before the Commissionary Inquisitors, 
that since the Gospel was preached in Peru by 
the Dominicans, who were'the first missionaries 
there, no preacher had ever inspired the people 
with such sentiments of penance, or inflamed 
them with so great a love of God, as S. Rose had 
lone since h^r death ; and this he proved by the 



ST. HOSE C<F LIMA 


231 


conversions which she had obtained of God for 
different persons. 

She not only gave her assistance to those who 
were engaged in sin to withdraw them from it, 
she also animated very good men to a more per¬ 
fect and holy manner of life. We may cite as 
an example Father John of Villalobos, Prefect 
of the College of the Society of Jesus in Lima, 
who having visited S. Rose in her last illness, 
and earnestly entreated her to draw him to the 
practice of her virtues, felt such interior unction, 
and received after her death such supernatural 
lights as made known to him that she had ob¬ 
tained for him the grace he had solicited. We 
may say, in fact, that there was no person so 
rebellious to grace, and so obstinate in sin, whom 
S. Rose did not induce to enter into himself and 
rise from his unhappy state. The inhabitants 
of Lima were greatly scandalized by the aver¬ 
sion which Mary Xuara, one of the richest and 
most influential persons in the country, bore to¬ 
wards some cousins of Francis and Alexander 
de Columa, two brothers who were sons of her 
husband by his first wife. Francis de Columa 
took care of the little orphans, but his step-mo¬ 
ther was not at all moved by their great poverty , 


232 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


on the contrary, she made her will without leav¬ 
ing them any thing, and to satisfy her hatred, 
she viid not even name them in it. These two 
brothers being, however, obliged by their busi¬ 
ness to go into the country and leave these poor 
orphans at Lima, Francis, touched with com¬ 
passion at their misery, addressed himself to S. 
Rose, and looking on her picture he begged her 
to soften the heart of this obstinate woman, and 
to inspire her with sentiments of humanity for 
these little children. The next day this woman, 
who during eighteen years would not see him, 
sent for him, and told him that she had passed 
a miserable night, and that the misery of the 
ten orphans had been constantly in her thoughts; 
and she begged him to fetch a lawyer to draw 
up another will in their favour; and this was 
executed. 

Louisa Barba, being almost in her agony, was 
exhorted by her confessor to have confidence in 
God, for she would not die of this illness, be¬ 
cause S. Rose had made known, by revelation, 
that she would be a nun, and would end her life 
in the cloister. She did not die, but she felt no 
inclination whatever to embrace this holy state; 
Bhe had, on the contrary, as great a horror for 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


233 


religion as she would have had for the frightful 
head of Medusa. Nevertheless, a short time af¬ 
ter S. Rose’s death, when she went to pray at 
her tomb, that God would make known to her 
the state of life for which His Divine Providence 
destined her, she felt herself so powerfully at¬ 
tracted by Almighty God, that being no longer 
desirous to resist grace, which had dissipated 
her unreasonable sentiments, she became a nun 
of the Third order of S. Dominic, and was called 
Sister Louisa of S. Mary. 

2 . 

TWO DEAD PERSONS RAISED TO LIFE, AND MANY 
MIRACULOUSLY CURED RY TOUCHING THE BODY 
OF S. ROSE, AND INVOKING HER ASSISTANCE IN 
THEIR INFIRMITIES. 

The authenticated miracle of the resurrection 
of Magdalen de Torrez, which happened in Oc¬ 
tober, 162T, should be placed first on the list, 
as the most admirable effect of the supernatural 
•power which- God communicates to His saints. 
She was the daughter of a poor labourer, who 
dwelt in the outskirts of Lima. She was seized 
with a violent fever and diarrhoea, of which she 
d'ed. She was placed on straw, where she re- 
20 * 



?34 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


mained from the night she died till the next 
day. Everything was ready for her burial, when 
her mother, placing her confidence in God and 
S. Rose’s protection, put on the mouth of her 
dead daughter a piece of a garment which had 
belonged to our Saint. "Wonderful to relate, 
this girl, who was quite cold, and whose body 
had become stiff, opened her eyes, and, in the 
presence of her father and several others who 
„ were in her room, rose from the mattress in full 
vigour and as perfect health as if she had not 
been ill 

In the year 1631, Anthony Bran, a servant 
of Madame Jeanne Barette, received a similar 
favour from heaven through the merits of the 
same Saint. He had been ill of a fever for three 
months, and had also a stomach complaint, very 
common in America, and often mortal, and his 
strength having been gradually exhausted, at 
length he died. Those who witnessed his death 
informed his mistress of it, who, seeing him 
dead, cold and breathless, lifted up her eyes to 
heaven and said, sighing, “ God has taken from 
me this servant, who was so useful to me in my 
affairs, and in the management of my household; 
may His holy Name be forever blessed!” While 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


235 


she was making this act of resignation, she per¬ 
ceived on the pillow of the dead man’s bed a 
paper picture of S. Rose, and immediately she 
entreated her protection in her affliction, and 
earnestly begged her to obtain from God the life 
of this servant. Full of confidence that she 
should obtain her request, she placed the pic¬ 
ture on the corpse, and while she was on her 
knees, praying with those who were in the room, 
Anthony came to life, rose up in a sitting posi¬ 
tion, and published aloud the favour h6 had re¬ 
ceived through the intercession of S. Rose, and 
went the same day to her tomb to thank her. 

While the corpse of our Saint was exposed in 
the church before burial, Elizabeth Durand went 
thither to touch it, that she might recover the 
use of her arm, of which she had been long de¬ 
prived, and which the surgeons pronounced in¬ 
curable, for none of their remedies could restore 
its natural heat; but having touched this holy 
body, she returned perfectly cured. A poor slave- 
woman, a native of Guinea, named Helen, bad 
been tormented for seven years by a quantity of 
worms, which, having exhausted her strength, 
had reduced her to x state in which her life was 
despa/red of. She was attacked by a violent 



236 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


fever, with swelling of the legs and heels, which 
were sure prognostics of approaching death. Her 
master, John Merin, being sorry to lose her, 
hearing of the miracles which were wrought by 
the intercession of S. Rose, who had been dead 
three days, persuaded this dying negress to re¬ 
commend herself to her prayers, and to promise 
to make a Novena at her tomb. She followed 
his advice: she was carried to the Saint’s tomb, 
and on the last day of the Novena she felt as 
well as if she had never had this illness. Beatrix 
Gavez, who had been afflicted for four years with 
a humour which fell in such quantities from her 
brain to her chest, that suffocation was appre¬ 
hended, having heard of S. Rose’s death, slipped 
with the crowd into the house of Don Gonzalez, 
in which she had died; and after having recom¬ 
mended herself to her prayers, she touched the 
bier on which her holy body was placed, in the 
hope of being relieved; and from that moment 
the humour ceased and was quite cured. 

The miracle which Almighty God worked in 
favor of Alphonso Diaz, through S. Rose’s in¬ 
tercession, is not less authentic. He was a poor 
cripple, well known to every one, who begged his 
bread from door to door in Lima; he dragged 

7 OS 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


28? 


himself along with difficulty on little crutches, 
on account of a contraction of the nerves, which 
had-some years back so dried up, and shortened 
his feet that he could not support himself on 
them; as soon as he had offered up his prayers 
near the coffin of S. Rose, whose assistance he in¬ 
voked from the bottom of his heart, that he 
might be cured through her means, he felt his 
feet stretch out; and having tried his weight 
upon them, to see if he could walk, he found 
himself perfectly cured. 

A negro child, aged twelve years, whose name 
is not mentioned, and who could only walk by 
crutches, hearing the miracles spoken of which 
were worked at the Church of S. Dominic by 
the merits of S. Rose, crept under the bier on 
which the body of our Saint was laid, and having 
invoked her assistance, he received so miraculous 
a cure that he began to run about the church 
in the presence of a crowd of people, who gave 
testimony of the miracle when they witnessed 
this wonderful sight. George de Aranda Val¬ 
divia, a priest, who had been in the war of Chili 
against the revolted Indians, and had afterwards 
embraced the ecclesiastical state, had received in 
battle several wounds in his left arm, which not 



288 


ST ROSE OF LIMA. 


having been well dressed, had caused in the 
course of time a tumour and inflammation, which 
prevented him from saying mass, as he could not 
raise his left arm. Being much afflicted at this 
circumstance, he went to the cloister of the re¬ 
ligious in which the body of S. Rose was to be 
interred, and having prayed and recommended 
himself to our saint, he found himself perfectly 
cured, and his arm free from swelling and in¬ 
flammation, and as flexible as the other. Trans¬ 
ported with joy, he entered the church, in which 
were Father Christopher of Azevedo and several 
seculars, and prostrating himself before the altar 
of our Lady of the Holy Rosary, he publicly gave 
thanks to God for the miraculous cure which he 
had obtained through the merits of S. Rose. 

Father Diego de Arasca, Prior of the Con¬ 
vent of Friar Preachers in the town of Panama, 
having set out for Lima during the great heats, 
was seized with fever, which reduced him to so 
deplorable a state, that the physicians seeing 
his body begin to swell, gave notice to the Fa¬ 
ther Provincial, Gabriel de Zarata, that the ad¬ 
ministration of the last Sacraments should not 
be deferred. This good father received them 
with exemplary piety; and while the physicians 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


239 


and his brother religious daspaired of his life, he 
recommended himself to S. Rose. His prayei 
being finished, the swelling and fever disap¬ 
peared, and the next day he went to the sepul¬ 
chre of our Saint to return thanks. Isidore de 
Montalvo, a very old woman, had been ill for 
eight months of fever with violent paroxysms, 
and the physicians, thinking her great age ren¬ 
dered her incapable of bearing remedies, had 
left her. In her extremity she called upon S. 
Rose, and immediately found herself free from 
fever. She lived a long time after receiving this 
favour through her intercession. 

There was at Lima a wretched woman, whose 
name is not given, who hated her husband to 
that degree that she poisoned him ; and that she 
might not fail in her design she chose a violent 
poison, that he might die before assistance could 
be had. As soon as he had taken the wine with 
which she had mixed the poison, his body began 
to swell, a perspiration came over him, and he 
began rolling his eyes like a dying person ; in 
the midst of these convulsions he cried out sud¬ 
denly, “ S. Rose, assist me ! I promise to make 
a Novena at your tomb !” His cruel wife, who 
expected only Lis death, was terrified at these 



240 


SI ROSE OF LIMA. 


words, and fearing to be punished for her abo¬ 
minable crime, she stabbed herself with a knife. 
Her husband recovered at that very hour, and 
the next day went to begin his No vena, which 
he finished as an offering of thanks to our Saint. 

3 

AFTER S. ROSE’S DEATH MANY SICK PERSONS WERE 
RESTORED TO HEALTH, AND SEVERAL WOMEN 
ASSISTED IN THEIR LABOUR BY TOUCHING HER 
VEIL, OR SOME PART OF HER DRESS. 

Eleonor Ruiz de Sandoza had long suffered 
from an almost insupportable pain in the head? 
which rendered her incapable of mental appli¬ 
cation. With the design of gaining the jubilee 
in the metropolitan church at Lima, she put a 
piece of S. Rose’s dress on her head, and was in¬ 
stantly relieved from the pain she had endured 
for many years. Another person, named Phi¬ 
lippa de Vargas, w r ho had a fever, felt in its 
paroxysms a violent pain in the head, as if some 
one had forced sharp thorns into it. Having 
tried remedies in vain, she had recourse to S* 
Rose, and full of confidence she put a piece of 
her dress on her head; she fell asleep imme¬ 
diately, and after a pleasant slumber she awoke 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


241 


without fever or headache. The prioress cf the 
monastery of S. Catherine of Sienna at Lima, 
used the same means to be cured of a headache 
and distillation of humours which fell into her 
chest, which cure she obtained by applying a 
piece of the dress of S. Hose. Sister Marine of 
S. Joseph, a Barefooted Carmelite, had so hurt 
her optic nerves by a fall, that she could neither 
raise nor cast down her eyes ; besides this, she 
suffered continual pain. In this affliction she 
applied a piece of the veil which our Saint had 
used, and was cured the same day. Isabel of 
Mendoza had in her house a little slave girl, 
named Margaret, who had lost the sight of one 
eye, and the other was so weak that she could 
scarcely see with it, so that it was thought she 
would become blind. Her mistress having seen 
persons in the church of the Friar Preachers 
thanking God for the health they had obtained 
miraculously through the merits of S. Rose, 
thought that her little slave might perhaps re¬ 
cover her sight through her intercession. In this 
confidence she asked the Father Sacristan for 
seme relic of our Saint, and he gave her a piece 
of S. Rose’s dress. In the evening she placed 
the relic between the child’s eyes, and having 
21 



242 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


bandaged thim she was put to bed. The next 
morning the skin which had covered her eye was 
found attached to the bandage on removing it, 
and both eyes were perfectly cured. 

Louisa de Faxado, a widow, who lived at Lima, 
had lost two of her children, a son aged seven¬ 
teen, and a daughter ten months old, by epilep¬ 
tic fits; she had only one little boy left, named 
Francis de Contreras, who was so tormented by 
the same malady, that he sometimes lay on the 
ground for fifteen hours in convulsions, foaming 
at the mouth and struggling, which made his 
mother despair of his recovery. In this extremity 
she had recourse to God; and knowing the mi¬ 
racles which he worked through the intercession 
of S. Rose, she thought she might obtain her 
son’s cure through her merits. When he was one 
day attacked by a fit of his malady, she placed 
a piece of our Saint’s scapular on his breast: his 
convulsions ceased at once; he came to himself, 
and had no returns of fits from that time. The 
year of our Saint’s death, John Rodriguez Sa- 
manez, a painter, was troubled with asthma, ac¬ 
companied by a great oppression of the stomach: 
this disease had three years before attacked his 
lungs, and he could only breathe by coughing, 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


243 


or with a whistling sound that proceeded from 
his chest. When nothing but his death was ex¬ 
pected, Mary de Mesta applied some relics of 
S. Rose to his stomach; and as soon as he had 
recommended himself to the saint he fell asleep, 
and when he awoke, found his chest relieved and 
entirely cured. A lay brother of our order, 
named John Garcias, finding the door of S. 
Rose’s hermitage too narrow to allow him to 
draw out a footstool, took a knife to cut off part 
of the wood; but in his eagerness he plunged 
the instrument so deeply into his hand that he 
cut off a large piece of the flesh, which hung 
from his arm in a frightful manner. He had 
recourse to S. Rose, and taking a piece of her 
veil he applied it to the wound and wrapped up 
the hand in his handkerchief, and an hour after¬ 
wards he found his wound as perfectly cured as 
if it had been dressed by the most skilful sur¬ 
geons in the country. More than twenty per¬ 
sons witnessed this miracle. 

Another still more famous miracle was ope 
rated in favour of Blanche' de Zuniga, wife of 
Don Anthony de Contreras, governor of the pro¬ 
vince of Guilas, in the kingdom of Peru. This 
lady, who had been eight months with child, be- 



244 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


ing at a country house with her husband, per¬ 
ceived one day that her child no longer moved, 
and concluded that it must be dead. She re¬ 
mained in this fear five days, and feeling already 
vapours rise to her brain, she prepared to re¬ 
ceive the last Sacraments. While all the family 
were in the greatest affliction at this two-fold 
misfortune, some pieces of S. Rose’s dress were 
brought from Lima to her husband. As soon as 
he received them he ran to his wife’s chamber, 
and giving them to her, she placed them on her 
body, and in the space of an Ave Maria, during 
which time she was occupied in invoking the pro¬ 
tection of our Saint, she was delivered of a dead 
child already putrified and livid, after which she 
was restored to health. 

S. Rose’s intercession was particularly avail¬ 
able to women, in freeing them from the cruel 
pangs of child-birth, and preserving their off¬ 
spring : and for this reason, after her death, a 
great number of children in Lima had the name 
of Rose given to them as a mark of their mo¬ 
thers’ gratitude for her assistance in their labour. 
Nature has sometimes imprinted a mark upon 
these children as a glorious testimony of the 
power wlrch SI’ Rose had received from God to 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


245 


assist them, of which Peter de Guixano is an ex¬ 
ample. This child was placed in a cross position 
in his mother’s w T omb, which, by preventing her 
delivery, put them both in evident danger of 
death: in this extremity the mother called upon 
S. Rose, and when her prayer was finished the 
infant moved, and came easily into the world, 
with a red rose on the eyelid of the right eye, 
which nature seemed to have engraved there in 
memory of this miracle. 

4 

SEVERAL PERSONS AFFLICTED WITH DYSENTERY, 
QUINSEY, FEVER, FRENZY, AND OTHER MALADIES, 
HAVE BEEN CURED BY POWDER FROM THE SEPUL¬ 
CHRE OF OUR SAINT. 

It would seem as if Almighty God had com¬ 
municated a medicinal and vivifying nature to 
this earth, in recompense for its having pre¬ 
served the body of S. Rose from corruption; for 
the convent of Friar Preachers at Lima being 
always composed of three hundred religious, they 
were obliged to procure from Panama a sandy 
and burning soil, in order to fill up the chapter 
cemetry, that the bodies being quickly consumed 
by it, there might be room to inter all the reli- 
21 * 



246 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


gious who died. Extraordinary to relate! that 
part alone of the ground which received the body 
of S. Rose, changed its quality. It became solid, 
the earth grew hard as stone, and not being able 
to scratch it up with their hands to obtain the 
dust, they were obliged to break it with a ham¬ 
mer, though the rest of the soil in the cemetry 
was quite light. Almighty God caused this mi¬ 
raculous earth to be, as it were, an inexhausti¬ 
ble source for the relief of the inhabitants of 
Peru, which was manifested visibly in 1632, 
when, after a prodigious quantity had been taken 
from this sepulchre to be distributed amongst 
the villages, towns, and provinces of this great 
kingdom, it did not appear that more than four 
pounds weight had been carried away; for F. 
Bernardin Marquez, who had been obliged to 
plunge his arm into the hole, to draw out the 
great quantity which was sent all over Peru, and 
even into Spain, perceived, with astonishment, 
on taking some out, that this earth had increased 
underneath, and that the space which he had 
left empty was so completely filled that he could 
not put his hand into it. This dust worked such 
miraculous cures, that persons came from all 
parts to fetch it;, so much the more eagerly, as 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


247 


they witnessed its wonderful effects. We will 
cite some remarkable examples. 

A little girl of six years old had the tonsils of 
her throat very much swollen by a quinsey; an 
ulcer had formed; but what made the surgeon 
fear she would die, was, that gangrene had com¬ 
menced in the wound, and the mortified flesh 
was beginning to fall away in small pieces. They 
gave her some of this earth mixed with a cooling 
drink, and the next day she was perfectly cured. 
For twenty years the abbess of the Monastery 
of the Nuns of S. Clare, in Truxillo, had had a 
swelled leg, which gave her great pain; for there 
were more* than forty ulcers in it, with so much 
inflammation that she was never without fever: 
she recovered her health by swallowing some of 
the eartfl from S. Rose’s tomb, though she had 
sought it, without success for several years, in 
the experience of surgeons and the remedies of 
medicine. Sister Grimaneca de Valverde, a nun 
of the Monastery of S. Clare, lost her sleep so 
completely with a burning fever and continual 
loss of blood, that she was fifteen days and 
nights without closing her eyes, which brought 
on delirium. The attendants were watching for 
an interval of reason to give her the last Sacra- 



248 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


ments, and prepare her for death, for the phys 
cians said she had not more than eight hours to 
live. Isabel of Fuente, the abbess, thought they 
must have recourse to the mercy of God, .and to 
the merits of S. Rose. In this confidence she * 
went to fetch some of the dust from her sepul¬ 
chre, and begged the confessor to mix it with 
water and give it to this dying nun to drink. 
He did so; she drank it, the fever diminished, 
the other symptoms disappeared, her senses re¬ 
turned, and after having slept she found herself 
perfectly well the next day. 

Father Ferdinand of Esquivel, sub-prior at 
Lima, in the Convent of S. Mary Magdalen, was 
troubled with a rupture, which prevented him 
from preaching or making any journey. One 
day when he was in affliction at this circum¬ 
stance, which prevented him from discharging 
his missionary duties, he was inspired by God to 
go to the sepulchre of S. Rose. He obeyed the 
thought: he went to her tomb, and after having 
prayed that, our Saint would assist him in this 
infirmity, and applied some of the dust: he never 
felt afterwards any pain, and was so perfectly 
cured that he resumed the office of preaching, 
which this indisposition had interrupted, and 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


249 


undertook long voyages by sea and land without 
any inconvenience. Anne Cortes received the 
same assistance in a more dangerous and press¬ 
ing infirmity. After two months of fever she 
was attacked by pleurisy, which so increased 
her fever that she became quite purple; she had 
lost appetite and sleep, and began to prepare 
for death, which she thought inevitable. Her 
mother recommended her to S. Rose, and re¬ 
membering that she had a little of the dust from 
her grave, she encouraged her daughter to have 
confidence in the merits of our Saint, and to 
swallow this dust in some broth: she said some 
prayers first, and after taking it, the purple co¬ 
lour disappeared, the fever left her, she went to 
sleep, and was entirely cured. 

Stephen of Cabrera, having broken a rib by a 
fall, felt so much pain from it that he could not 
sleep. He asked for some of this dust, and hav¬ 
ing applied it to his side, the swelling went down, 
and he fell into a slumber which relieved his pain. 
On awaking, he found himself perfectly recov¬ 
ered. In 1618, on the 21st of March, Catherine 
of Artiaga was attacked in the’presence of several 
ladies of rank, by a violent bleeding at the nose, 
which no remedies seemed capable of stopping, 



250 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


and she prepared for death. A lady having witr. 
her some of the dust from S. Rose’s grave, put 
a little into a piece of linen and hung it round 
Catherine’s neck, and immediately the blood 
ceased to flow, of which several persons "were 
witness. Father Anthony Montoya, and Father 
Juan de Estrada, both novices in the Dominican 
order, were going to receive holy orders in the 
town of Guamangan; and as they were passing 
through a village named Guando, a man, think¬ 
ing they were two priests, came in terror to re¬ 
quest them to go and give absolution to a poor 
Indian woman who was in her agony, as there 
was no priest in the village. These two Friars 
were much grieved that they had not the power 
of absolving this poor sick woman, and went with 
the man to exhort her, and make the recommen¬ 
dation of her soul. They found her motionless, 
incapable of speech, and apparently near her 
end. As they were praying at the foot of her 
bed, Brother Anthony remembered that he had 
some of this dust with him; and when the prayers 
were finished he related to those who were pre¬ 
sent the miracles which God worked every day 
by means of it, to honour our Saint; and he ex¬ 
horted them to call upon her for this sick * 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


251 


son. He put some in a spoon, and having mixed 
it with water, he made her swallow it. Two hours 
later, these novices being ready to quit the vil¬ 
lage, came again to see her, and on their en¬ 
trance they found her husband as joyful as he 
had been sad, and the woman sitting up and eat¬ 
ing with a good appetite. When she was told 
that this dust had cured her, she thanked them, 
and was from that time very devout to S. Rose, 
and said publicly, that she owed her life to her. 

The number of those who were cured of fevers 
is so great, that it will be sufficient ~to mention 
several names. Joseph de Castro was cured by 
taking some of the dust in broth. Jane of Men¬ 
doza used the same means with success. Father 
Diego de Palomino, a very learned religious of 
the Order of Friar Preachers, finding no medi¬ 
cine give him relief in his fever, addressed his 
prayers to S. Rose, swallowed some of the dust, 
and was that day heard and cured of his disease. 
Marie Velasquez, wife of Captain Diego Ruiz de 
Campos, was freed from a fever and other symp¬ 
toms, which put her life in danger, by drinking 
water with which this dust had been mixed. John 
of Palomorez was cured of fever and asthma by 
the sw.e remedy. A short time after, his wife, 
22 



252 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA 


who had been with child seven months, was at 
tacked by fever, which greatly reduced her; and 
being incapable of using the remedies of medi¬ 
cine, she put her confidence in S. Rose’s protec¬ 
tion, and took some of the dust from her tomb, 
which cured her the same day. 

We should never finish if we were to try to 
name all the others; it will suffice to say, that 
with all the care that was taken to keep a list of 
them, the number of the cured was too great for 
the pious intention of those who undertook it. 
John Lobo, a priest, swore solemnly before the 
Apostolic Commissioners, that he had seen a 
great number of persons of every rank and age, 
at Chusco, Potozzi, Orura, and other places of 
Peru, cured in a moment of their infirmities, and 
chiefly of fever, after having taken in water a 
little of the earth from her grave. 

5 . 

PICTURES OF S. ROSE APPLIED TO PERSONS AF¬ 
FLICTED WITH LEPROSY, QUINSEY, GOUT, HEAD¬ 
ACHE, AND OTHER INFIRMITIES, HAVE BEEN THE 
MEANS OF RESTORING HEALTH TO THEM. 

The devotion of the people to S. Rose was so 
great after her death, that there was scarcely a 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


253 


family, not only in Lima, but in a J the towns 
and villages of Peru, that did not possess one 
of her pictures engraved and printed at Rome, 
whence they were sent to India. The miracles 
which God worked through these pictures caused 
the sick to have recourse to them in their infir¬ 
mities. 

Mary de Vera, the widow of Louis Nugnez, 
had a violent fever, with other symptoms, which 
reduced her to the last extremity, and obliged 
her to receive the Sacraments in preparation for 
death, as the physicians assured her she would 
not survive the next day. She sent, however, to 
beg Marianne, an Indian woman, who, when 
young, had been brought up with St. Rose, to 
send her a little picture of our Saint which she 
possessed: as soon as she received it, she kissed 
it with devotion, and holding it in her arms, she 
fell into a slumber, which lasted till the next 
morning. On awaking, she found herself in per¬ 
fect health; and, full (f jdy, she lighted a wax 
taper on each side of this picture, and placing 
herself on her knees, she thanked St. Rose for 
having obtained her health from God for her. 
This miraculous cure being made known in the 
town, public thanksgivings were offered to God 
22 



254 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


for it. In 1631, during the month of Decern 
her, Mary de los Royes, a little girl of nine years 
old, was miraculously cured in nearly the same 
manner. For a year this child had had a dis¬ 
order in the head which nothing had been able 
to remove. Her mother took her to the church 
of S. Dominic, and taking off her cap, touched 
the picture of S. Rose devoutly with one of her 
bandages, and hoping to obtain from God her 
daughter’s cure, she replaced it on her head ; 
two days afterwards this child was found as per¬ 
fectly cured as if she had had nothing the mat¬ 
ter with her head. 

In November of the same year, a little orphan, 
ten months old, named Mary, lived with Jerome 
de Soto Alvarado, who had taken her through 
charity. This child was so afflicted with leprosy, 
that she was a horrible object. The servant of 
the house seeing that the physicians despaired 
of curing her, went to pick up in the church of 
S. Dominic a number of roses which had been 
placed on a statue of S. Rose; she took them 
home, and without mentioning her design she 
applied them to all the marks of leprosy which 
appeared on this child’s body: having wrapped 
her well up, she carried her to bed, and found 



ST. ROSE OF LIM4. 


265 


her the next morning cured of her leprosy: in 
ecstacies of joy she ran to acquaint her master, 
who hastened to view the miracle, and who went 
to give testimony of it before the Apostolical 
Commissioners who were examining the life and 
miracles of our Saint. This miracle was so well 
authenticated and so public, that to keep it in 
mind, they ordered that the little girl should 
be called Mary Rose, which name she bore all 
her life. 

Sebastiana de Yega being in the act of mount¬ 
ing a mule to go into the country with her hus¬ 
band, Cyprian de Medina, a doctor of laws, and 
royal advocate, f^ll when she had her foot in the 
stirrup, and dislocated a bone, which gave her 
very great pain, and rendered her incapable of 
changing her position in bed. One night when 
she was in great suffering, she desired the ser¬ 
vant to bring her a paper picture of S. Rose. 
She placed it on the dislocated bone with so 
much confidence, that on awaking from a slum¬ 
ber into which she had fallen while holding this 
picture, she found herself cured and free from 
pain. A poor slave, named Elizabeth Biafora, 
being very near her confinement, was seized with 
pleurisy, violent fever, and vomiting; the phy- 



266 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


sicians seeing these symptoms in a person who 
was not in a state to use their remedies, caused 
her to receive the last Sacraments, thinking she 
could not recover. This poor woman seeing 
there was no human hope, put all her confidence 
in God; she earnestly asked for a picture of S. 
Rose, which she applied to the side in which she 
felt pain, and teft it there all night. The next 
morning the physicians being come to try to 
save at least the child’s life, were much surprised 
to find her in perfect health, and asking for 
something to eat. • The day after this miracle 
her confinement took place happily, and she was 
able to nurse the child herself. In 1632, Ange¬ 
lica de Albido, wife of Francis de las Cuentas, 
who was with child of twins, was delivered of 
one on the 16th of May, but the other still re¬ 
mained, and the matrons who attended her 
thought she would die. Her husband was in¬ 
consolable ; and in this consternation the sick 
person had recourse to S. Rose, and asking for 
one of her pictures, she had it fixed to the foot 
of her bed, that it might be always before her 
eyes. Wli’le she was heartily praying to her 
to help her in this extremity, she felt pains come 
on, a. d in the same moment a second daughter 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


257 


came into the world. In memory of this mira¬ 
cle they were named in baptism Mary and Fran¬ 
ces de Rose. The history of her life from which 
these miracles have been taken, relates twelve 
more which are well authenticated, and which 
were wrought by the application of her pictures: 
we will mention one before finishing this para¬ 
graph. Anne Mary, daughter of Mary Morales, 
was near her confinement, but the child was 
dead. When the pains of labour came on, she 
perceived that the child did not move; and think¬ 
ing herself in danger of death, she made her 
confession to prepare for it; and while they were 
expecting her to die, her mother, full of confi¬ 
dence, brought her a picture of S Rose, and af¬ 
ter applying it, she was happily delivered of a 
dead child, larger than ordinary, and which was 
partly in a state of putrefaction. 


22* 



258 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

OF THE EFFORTS MADE AT ROME TO OBTAIN FROM 
THE POPE HER CANONIZATION. 

As honour is the reward of virtue, it has al¬ 
ways, in every country, been rendered to illus¬ 
trious men who have signalized themselves by 
glorious actions, or who have well served the peo¬ 
ple or the state; and as the apotheosis consti¬ 
tuted, in their idea, the height of glory, supreme 
honours have been offered to those emperors and 
heroes who had made themselves renowned by 
the mildness of their government, or by the 
splendour of their triumph. The Christian re¬ 
ligion, more enlightened in the discernment of 
the honour she pays, and more just in the re¬ 
compense which she awards to virtue, consecrates 
the most solid and the most noble rewards tc 
those who have perfectly imitated the Son of 
God by the exact practice of the heroic virtues 
which He preached on earth by word and exam¬ 
ple ; she praises their merit, she pronounces pane¬ 
gyrics in theii h rnour and to render them immor- 



ST* ROSE OF LIMA. 


259 


tal in the memory of man she grants them the 
honour of a sacred apotheosis, declaring to the 
people that they are reigning with God, and that 
they may offer to them public testimonies of ho¬ 
nour and respect. The eminent virtue of S. Rose, 
sustained by such great and continual miracles, 
rendered her so faithful a copy of the virtues of 
Jesus Christ, that we may say in her praise what 
Ilildebert said of a lady who was very pious and 
closely united to God : “ In ea prseter virtutem , 
virtus nihil invenit.” 

We need not be astonished that the kingdom 
of Peru most earnestly solicited, after her death, 
the honours of canonization for her from the 
Holy See. The metropolitan church of Lima, 
all the religious orders of S. Francis, S. Augus¬ 
tine, the Carmelites, the Order of Mercy, of S. 
John of God, and Father Nicholas Mastrillo, 
Provincial of the Society of Jesus, in the name 
of the whole company, wrote letters to the Pope, 
by which they very humbly entreated his Holi¬ 
ness to proceed to the canonization of the ad¬ 
mirable servant of God, Sister Rose of S. Mary, 
whom the people honoured for her virtues, and 
whose miracles rendered her illustrious through¬ 
out the New World.. All the secular orders, the 
23** 



260 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


viceroy, the council of state, the governors of 
the province, and the magistrates of the towns, 
united for the same end, and joining their soli¬ 
citations to those of the prelates, the clergy, 
and of all the religious communities, entreated 
iiot only for her canonization, but that S. Rose 
might also be given as tutelar patroness to Lima, 
the capital of the kingdom of Peru. A brief was 
dispatched from Rome, by which his Holiness 
appointed apostolical commissioners to examine 
on the spot her life, manners, and the miracles 
wrought at her tomb. It was thought that the 
depositions of a hundred and eighty-three wit¬ 
nesses would soon enable them to see the de¬ 
sires of all Christian America satisfied; for on 
the 22d of March, in 1625, Cardinal Peretti, 
Prefect of the Congregation of Rites, having 
examined the depositions which had been juri¬ 
dically taken at Lima, of the life and miracles 
of S. Rose, issued a decree in which he had de¬ 
clared that his Holiness might make inquiries 
by apostolical authority. 

On the appearance of this decree pope Urban 
VIII. sent a brief to the archbishop of Lima, 
and in his absence to the bishop of Guatimala, 
giving him for h‘.s coadjutors the .dean and the 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


261 


archdeacon of the church of Lima. They were 
so diligent, that the proceedings were finished 
and presented to the Congregation of Rites on 
the 22d of July, 1634. Cardinal Torrez, who 
had succeeded Cardinal Peretti, acknowledged 
their authenticity; but a brief which his Holi¬ 
ness published the year following, prohibiting 
new devotions, stopped the whole affair. After 
the death of Urban VIII. the solicitations were 
continued under Innocent X., but delays were 
caused by unavoidable circumstances. 

Under Alexander VII. the petition was re 
newed, and F. Anthony Gonzalez, Definitor ol 
Peru, and Attorney in this affair, was so dili¬ 
gent in the business, that on the 13th of Sep¬ 
tember, 1663, Cardinal Azzolini having made an 
ample discourse on the heroic virtues of S. Rose 
in the Congregation of Rites before his Holi¬ 
ness, and also on the miracles which God every 
day worked through her merits, it was resolved 
to proceed to her canonization. F. Gonzalez re¬ 
peated the solicitations which had been made to 
three preceding popes, in the name of the three 
orders of Peru, the clergy, the nobility, and the 
people. He presented to the’Pope the requests 
rf nine religi ^us orders, three letters from the 



262 


ST. ROSE OF LjMA. 


king of Spain, and three from the cardinal cf 
Arragon on the same subject. 

The very Reverend Father John Baptist Je 
Marinis, of the Order of Friar Preachers, pre¬ 
sented to him two requests in the name of his 
whole Order, by which he made known to his 
Holiness the persevering devotion of all Peru, 
in honouring the venerable Sister Rose of S. 
Mary as a Saint, whose merits it had pleased 
God to exalt by a hundred and nineteen new 
miracles; but the war with the Turks in Hun¬ 
gary, and other affairs, caused the execution to 
be uelayed a little longer. 

Divine Providence had reserved the glory of 
the accomplishment of the proceedings to our 
Holy Father Pope Clement IX. The queen re¬ 
gent of Spain made such earnest entreaties, 
that his Holiness commanded the Congregation 
of Rites to assemble for this purpose. After 
several meetings their decree was published on 
the 10th of December, 1667, by which they de¬ 
clared that his Holiness might proceed to the 
canonization of this servant cf God, and might 
permit her in the meantime 13 be honoured un¬ 
der the name of Blessed. 



ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


263 


The Brief of Clement IX. for the beatifica¬ 
tion of S. Rose, is dated the 12th of February, 
1668 ; and she was canonized three years later, 
1671, by Clement X., who appointed the 30th 
of August for her feast. Thus solemnly has the 
Church of God set the seal of Her unerring ap¬ 
proval upon that Series of wonders, that endless 
chain of miracles, which, reaching from her cra¬ 
dle to her grave, make up the life of this Ameri¬ 
can virgin. There was never a time and never 
a land, when and where it was more needful for 
the daughters of the Church to learn how to 
make for themselves a cloister in the world, than 
England and America in the present age; and 
it is precisely this lesson which the Life of S. 
Rose conveys. Amidst so much that is false and 
hollow, heartless and unreal, how beautiful be¬ 
fore Almighty God would be the child-like sim¬ 
plicity of this Virgin of the South, copied even 
faintly in the lives of our Catholic country-wo¬ 
men ! For it is this simplicity which was her 
fairest ornament: indeed, so completely child¬ 
like was she herself, and so child-like the won¬ 
ders with which her Divine Spouse encircled her, 
that in reading her Life it seems hardly ever to 



264 


ST. ROSE OF LIMA. 


strike us that she was any thing but a little girl. 
It is as though she grew no older, but remained 
still the baby, cradled in the arms of Jesus, as 
when the vermilion rose bloomed miraculously 
on her little face when three months old. Let 
us also thank Almighty God in the fervent sim* 
plicity of our faith for the seal His Church has 
set upon these authentic wonders; wonders not 
lost in dubious antiquity, but adequately proved 
in the face of modern criticism so short a time 
ago; and remembering that this bold exhibition 
of the marvellous is by no less an authority than 
the Catholic Church presented to our veneration 
and our love, let us take it like awe-struck chil¬ 
dren, as a page from the lost chronicles of Eden, 
and strive to unlearn that bold timidity with 
which we have too often been inclined to court 
favour where we shall never get it, and to avoid 
sneers which are to us as an heritage and vouchers 
of our truths, by smiling with the profane, and 
doubting with the sceptical. For one of the 
faithful to try to look as like an unbeliever as 
he can, is a sight which never won a soul to 
Christ, or gained for the Church the esteem of 
an opponent. Rose of Lima is now raised upon 
the altars of the Church by the decree of her 
canonization; she is a Catholic Saint; no sneer 
of man can wither the marvellous blooming of 
her leaves; but he will find a thorn who shall 
dare to handle roughly this sweet mysterious 
Rose which S. Dominic planted in the garden 
of his Master. Editor. 






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